The Ohio Department of Health is reporting Ohio’s first case of Zika virus in a returning traveler from Haiti.
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The release states that planning is underway for a Zika virus tabletop exercise to ensure Ohio’s preparedness at the local and state levels prior to the 2016 mosquito season that runs from May to October.
Climate change may have fueled the outbreak of the mosquito-born Zika virus in Latin American and make it harder for developing countries to manage future epidemics, researchers said. When symptoms occur, they are often mild, lasting from several days to a week, and include fever, rash, joint and muscle pain, conjunctivitis (red eyes), and headache.
The Ministry advised the public that pregnant women were at risk of getting the Zika virus at any trimester in their pregnancy. Zika virus is transmitted primarily through the bite of an infected mosquito, the same mosquitoes that spread dengue and chikungunya viruses.
The World Health Organisation declared an worldwide health emergency on February 1 over the outbreak of the virus, that authorities fear is linked to a rise in cases of microcephaly, a birth defect marked by an abnormally small head.
This 2006 photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a female Aedes aegypti mosquito in the process of acquiring a blood meal from a human host.
Wear long-sleeved shirts and long trousers to reduce the amount of exposed skin. Zika also replicates faster in the heat, so the mosquitoes transmit it earlier in their 10-day lifespan. The state’s Department of Health said the patient is not sick enough to require hospitalization.
The CDC recommends staying in air-conditioned or screened-in locations and sleeping under a mosquito bed net if you are outside or overseas and unable to otherwise protect yourself from mosquito bite.
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“Unless mitigated, climate change is likely to bring the spread of new emergent infectious diseases like Zika virus”, Nick Watts, who leads a commission on health and climate change for the medical journal The Lancet, said during the call.
