A neurological disorder suspected of links to the mosquito-borne Zika virus is on the rise in Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Suriname and Venezuela, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.
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Only about 1 in 5 people infected with the virus become ill, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The frontline of defense is stopping the Zika virus before it get’s imported by folks traveling from central and south America.
Officials said a second case was confirmed in a 21-year-old Stark County man, also a traveler returning from Haiti. Scientists are investigating a potential link between Zika infections of pregnant women and more than 4,000 suspected cases in Brazil of microcephaly, a condition marked by abnormally small head size that can result in developmental problems.
Earlier this week, researchers in Slovenia published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine describing a severely brain damaged fetus from a mother who was infected with Zika in Brazil and later terminated the pregnancy.
“It seems indeed that the link with Zika (and microcephaly) is becoming more and more probable, so I think that we need a few more weeks and a few more studies to have this straight”, Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO assistant director-general for health systems and innovation, said.
Among Olson’s clients no one has cancelled, but two people have chose to change their Caribbean destination to Hawaii because of the Zika virus scare.
He said the illness was usually mild with symptoms lasting for several days.
The finding raises new questions for health authorities as they scramble to learn more about Zika – linked to a surge in birth defects in Brazil – and the risk of transmission through sex.
Two cases of possible person-to-person sexual transmission has been described, but the PAHO said more evidence is needed to confirm whether sexual contact is a means of Zika transmission.
The country’s Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole announced that there are substantial grounds for preventing the team from travelling to the Latin American Country but said that the government has not decided not to stop the qualified participants to travel to country.
“We had no knowledge of it. It wasn’t until we arrived that a lot of his friends and family were talking about that there was a Zika and a Chikungunya outbreak”, Mejia said.
Fauci said it is not entirely surprising that Zika persists in semen. Doctors suggest they not travel to countries where the virus is prevalent.
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Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical School, said the possibility of the virus being associated with miscarriages has been an ongoing concern for health officials.
