Until recently, the potentially life-threatening syndrome was so rare that Brazil’s Health Ministry did not require regional officials to report it. But a year ago, the authorities in north-east Brazil, the part of the country hit hardest by the Zika virus, counted hundreds of cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, prompting doctors to sound the alarm.
Advertisement
Canadian Health Minister Jane Philpott told reporters on Thursday that none of the cases were caused by transmission of the virus in Canada, and that local transmission should not be of concern to Canadians.
The World Health Organization is now using two terrifying words to describe the Zika virus: “spreading explosively”. The virus is transmitted to people through the bite of infected female Aedes mosquitoes, the same type of mosquito that spreads dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Instead of high fevers and intense muscular aches that dengue is known to cause, patients were running only slight temperatures and complaining of joint pain.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued travel warnings for more than 20 countries in South America, the Caribbean, and Latin America.
Although research is still underway, significant evidence in Brazil shows a link between Zika infections and rising cases of microcephaly, a neurological disorder in which infants are born with smaller craniums and brains.
The ministry has warned people travelling from Zika virus-struck countries that they should keep an eye on their health in the first 14 days after arrival to Vietnam.
State public health officials say an estimated 80 percent of infected people don’t experience symptoms.
Colombia has said it had about 16,500 suspected cases of Zika, though only a small fraction have been confirmed by laboratory tests. The company is offering pregnant passengers and their travel partners refunds for tickets to Zika-affected regions. But the United States never had large outbreaks of these viruses, and the CDC said it does not expect large outbreaks of Zika virus here either.
Advertisement
Health officials are advising pregnant women and those planning pregnancy to adopt necessary anti-mosquito precautions, and consider deferring trips to areas with Zika virus transmissions. In Brazil, there were more than 3,500 cases of microcephaly between October 2015 and January 2016, a significant increase from the average of about 150 cases per year.
