In her first major address on the Zika outbreak, the head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan, said the mosquito-borne virus has gone from being “a mild threat to one of alarming proportions”.
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Environmental officials said the species of mosquito primarily responsible for transmitting Zika virus is not found in CT.
“There is not robust scientific evidence that this is a cause-effect relationship between the Zika virus and the pregnant women and the babies getting a small head”, Rathore said. Outbreaks of Zika have occurred in Africa, Southeast Asia, South America, and the Pacific Islands, and it is likely that outbreaks will spread to new countries. Bassett urged pregnant women who have traveled to affected countries to consult their doctors.
“When a mosquito bites an infected person and then transmits to a different person through a bite”, said Dr. Dawn Nolt of Doernbecher.
The virus “is now spreading explosively”, she added. “Do I think, or most public health experts think, Zika will enter and spread rapidly through the United States?”
Chan said the World Health Organization will convene an emergency committee meeting on Monday to help determine its response level.
The agency was “supporting the scaling up and strengthening of surveillance systems in countries that have reported cases of Zika and of microcephaly and other neurological conditions that may be associated with the virus”, it noted in the statement. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it hard for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected.
Infected people can expect fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes for a couple of days or up to a week, and hospitalization is rare, the CDC says.
So far Zika virus, which was first detected in Brazil, has not caused any deaths and the symptoms may not even be detected by those who contract it.
This comes after United Airlines and American Airlines in the United States announced they were offering refunds to passengers concerned about the virus. This past week, WakeMed began screening pre-natal patients who have recently traveled.
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According to the French health ministry, since late December 2015, 45 Zika cases have been confirmed in French Guiana, one case in Guadeloupe and one case in St. Martin.
