“We will continue our drive for the full participation of every segment of the society as we seek to reduce the impact of the Zika virus on individuals, communities, health and other sectors, productivity and the workplace, as well as the economy”, noted Minister of Health Christopher Tufton.
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The elderly relative who died after contracting Zika overseas had amounts of the virus in his blood more than 100,000 times higher than other samples of infected people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Zika is normally spread by mosquitoes and can also be transmitted sexually. The man, whose identity has not been released, was not hospitalized and is recovering, health officials said.
Dunn said Aedes mosquitoes are not thought to be established in Utah.
Erin Staples, MD, PhD, CDC’s Medical Epidemiologist, said the Utah case is surprising and shows the CDC has a lot more to learn about Zika than before. Disease detectives are investigating the possibility that the relative somehow caught it while caring for the elderly man at a home and in a hospital.
The researchers at University of California, San Francisco, and University of California, Berkeley, reported their findings about the possible routes of Zika virus infection and the results of laboratory tests of the older-generation antibiotic’s effects on human tissue in the journal Cell Host & Microbe published on Monday. Nor had the caregiver had sexual contact with anyone known to be infected with the virus. And local Utah authorities said the public shouldn’t fear general Zika transmission. The elderly patient appeared to be exceptionally infectious, with virus blood counts more than 100,000 times higher than those seen in normal infected patients.
Prior to his death, the man had Zika symptoms – including rash, fever and pink eye – but it’s not known if the virus led to his death. Zika can also be spread through sex – from men to women as well as from women to men.
Such a high viral load may have been due to the fact that the elderly patient had an underlying medical condition that likely dampened the patient’s immune system. The virus can cause birth defects in children whose mothers were infected during pregnancy, according to the CDC. Only about 20 percent of patients notice symptoms.
File photo taken on February 4, 2016, shows Pollyana Rabello (L), holding her baby, Luiz Philipe, who was born with microcephaly, in their house in Marica, Rio de Janeiro state. Brazil is the epicenter of the Zika epidemic. The virus can also cause neurological complications in adults in rare cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a team in Utah helping the state investigate how this individual contracted the virus. However, the CDC is now testing local mosquitoes to absolutely rule out this possibility. “We have made hard decisions and redirected resources from other important public health activities to support our most critical needs” Frieden tesitified, but “these redirected funds…are not enough to support a comprehensive Zika response, and they divert funding from other critically important public health activities”.
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Fourteen were people who had not traveled to Zika zones but had sex with someone who had.
