The Zika virus is spread when a mosquito bites an infected person and then bites someone else.
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Deputy medical health officer for the Saskatoon Health Region Dr. Johnmark Opondo, said they are most concerned about microcephaly, a developmental disorder where newborns are born with abnormally small heads.
The virus was discovered in the 1940s but recently showed up in Brazil.
– 80 percent of people who are infected with Zika virus don’t have symptoms.
Several state health agencies have confirmed cases in Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey and Texas, according to The Washington Post.
Last week a baby born with microcephaly in Hawaii became the first newborn to test positive for the Zika virus on United States soil.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a travel alert for pregnant women to avoid 14 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, Mexico and Haiti.
Common symptoms associated with the virus include fever, rash, joint pain and bloodshot eyes. The virus had been reported in 178 Colombian municipalities and in 28 out of the country’s 32 departments, according Martha Lucia Ospina, director of the National Institutes of Health.
In Brazil, which is combatting a large outbreak, there has been a significant increase in cases of a birth defect linked to Zika.
Health experts are unsure why the virus, which was first detected in Africa in 1947 but unknown in the Americas until previous year, is spreading so rapidly in Brazil and neighboring countries. “And so the measures that people need to take to prevent mosquito bites, they have to use all the time, not just at night”.
That’s part of the reason why Jamaican officials have asked women here to delay getting pregnant.
The woman contracted the virus while traveling in Latin America.
Zika causes only a mild illness in most people.
– It is transmitted primarily by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which also can also spread dengue fever, chikungunya and yellow fever.
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“There is a potential that there are other mosquitoes in Australia that could carry and potentially transmit Zika virus that we don’t know about”, Professor Ritchie said.
