More than 2,100 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the country’s national health institute said on Saturday (Jan 30), as the disease continues its spread across the Americas.
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ABC News reported more than 30 combined cases across the continental USA earlier in the day.
Fortunately, it’s relatively easy to avoid contracting the virus; just like West Nile or Chikungunya, the best way to prevent yourself from getting Zika virus is to avoid mosquito bites.
Pregnant women beware. While contraction of Zika rarely results in hospitalization, the virus is linked to a birth defect, microcephaly, which causes babies to develop abnormally small heads.
Geneva: Despite the Zika virus continuing to spread in the Americas, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday that during the winter, the risk of Zika virus transmission in Europe was extremely low. The minister called for increased focus on prevention to control the spread of the Aedes mosquito that breeds in clean water and is implicated in the spread of the Zika virus. The Brazilian government says its response when it was first alerted by the doctors about the unusual symptoms they were seeing was driven by the evidence. The CDC recommends that women who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant postpone travel to any area in which the virus is being transmitted. Generally the symptoms, which include rash, fever, joint pain and conjunctivitis, are relatively mild, so many people do not even realise they have been infected. But in 2015, an outbreak was reported in Brazil, and the disease has been reported in 20 other countries in North and South America.
There is no vaccine for the virus at the present.
The outbreak has sparked health warnings and eradication campaigns, with Brazil deploying troops and Colombia launching a mass fumigation campaign to fight mosquitoes.
The health sector was asked to enhance the monitoring work at border areas, particularly among vehicles and passengers returning from Zika virus-hit areas.
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But the CDC is optimistic that should a case of Zika virus enters the country, the cold weather will keep it from spreading too much.
