STEPPING up measures against the Zika virus, the Department of Health on Monday said all suspected cases, including babies diagnosed with microcephaly, will now be tested for the mosquito-borne disease.
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First discovered in Uganda in 1947, the Zika virus wasn’t thought to pose major health risks until a year ago, when it became clear that it posed potentially devastating threats to pregnant women.
There is now active transmission of the virus in more than 20 central and South American countries.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Zika virus is transmitted by infected mosquito Aedes Aegypti-the same mosquito that carries the Dengue virus.
Many of you might be getting to ready to opt out of the Wisconsin spring weather for somewhere nicer, but with the recent Zika virus outbreak, there’s growing concern over travel, even for women who are not pregnant.
First case of the Zika virus was reported in Cuba where the virus was contracted within the country, Cuba’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday.
State officials recommended that women who are pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant to postpone travel to Zika-affected areas.
Under the DOH’s surveillance system, samples collected from cases with suspected Zika virus will be collected and sent to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), which received a fresh supply of testing kits late last week.
In early February, ODH announced the state’s first Zika case, in a Cleveland woman who had recently traveled to Haiti.
In comparison, during the Zika outbreak in French Polynesia, 66 percent of the population was infected, the researchers said.
For more information on Zika virus, check the CDC’s site here. No matter what beach you plan on traveling to, you should use extra precautions with children and women who are pregnant.
Garin meanwhile said that there has not been a significant increase in cases of microcephaly – or babies being born with smaller heads than average – in Luzon. In Miami, the city with the greatest risk of a Zika outbreak, 500,000 to 1 million people arrive each month from countries that have experienced widespread Zika transmission.
In addition to congenital microcephaly, Zika virus may cause miscarriages, and other adverse fetal outcomes.
Several reports have linked Zika in mothers with Microcephaly in infants, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention says.
Cuba has thrown more than 9,000 soldiers, police and university students into an effort to fumigate for mosquitoes, wipe out the standing water where they breed and prevent a Zika epidemic.
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Wear long-sleeved shirts and long trousers.
