But the increase in both cases and birth defects in Brazil in the past year has prompted health officials to reassess their thinking about Zika and pregnant women.
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He said that it can not be discarded that Zika is a factor in those diseases but not the only one. They did not identify the woman or where she lived.
Aside from mosquitoes, Zika can be spread through sexual contact in some cases, the CDC notes.
In the southern Guangdong Province, which is at the center of exchanges between China and South America, medical authorities have strengthened the monitoring of body temperature for inbound passengers at airports and major sea ports to prevent possible Zika virus epidemic. As the World Health Organization said recently, it’s “people, rather than mosquitoes” that move the virus from one community to another.
But de Filippis stressed that the latest discovery does not prove that the Zika virus caused microcephaly in the two Brazilian infants in the study.
“Finally we’re seeing a lack of other explanatory causes, not to say that there still aren’t other causes, not to say that it may not be associated or Zika would be a co-factor still but there’s still an increasing accumulation of evidence now that these phenomena may be associated”, he said.
A view in a macro lens of “Aedes aegypti” mosquito, which spreads the Zika, Dengue and Chikunguna viruses, at the epidemiology department of Guatemala City, Guatemala, on 1 February 2016. Symptoms, which can last between several days to a week, also include headache, muscle pain, vomiting and pain behind the eyes.
There have been no reports to date of Zika virus entering the USA blood supply, the FDA said. Still, there no promising vaccine in the works for Zika now.
Hope Solo (above), star goalie for the U.S. Olympic women’s soccer team, has voiced concern over the risk of contracting the Zika virus at the Olympic games in Brazil this summer.
As of today, 36 countries are known to have transmission of the virus, including 28 in the Americas, Aylward said.
The World Health Organization now estimates there could be up to 4 million cases of Zika in the Americas in the next year.
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The meeting between USA and Brazilian public health experts helped pool scientific information, remove hurdles and make sure “we are putting our best minds together” to advance research on Zika and its consequences, said USA delegation head, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Jimmy Kolker.
