The Zika epidemic and possible link to microcephaly cases in Brazil prompted the World Health Organization to declare a global emergency on Monday, calling the virus’ rapid spread and its apparent link to the birth defect an “extraordinary event” that poses a threat to the rest of the world.
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CDC has confirmed through laboratory testing that it was the first US case of Zika virus infection in a non-traveler in the continental U.S.
“I would raise caution that any blood used in pregnant women should be tested for the presence of Zika virus”, something that now doesn’t happen, Lipkin said. The man said he had had symptoms of Zika, including a low-grade fever, earlier in the year but that he did not seek treatment because they went away after three days.
Dallas County officials said a patient there was infected following sexual contact with someone who had returned to the United States after contracting it in Venezuela.
Individuals can protect themselves from mosquito bites by using insect repellents, and wearing long sleeves and long trousers – especially during daylight, when the mosquitoes tend to be most active, health officials say.
“This opens up a whole new range of prevention issues”, said Dr William Schaffner, chief of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical School. Rather, it is transmitted when an infested mosquito bites a human, and then another mosquito bites the infected person.
One of the bugs that transmits Zika is the Asian tiger mosquito, also known as Aedes albopictus. “Sexual transmission can not account for this sudden and widespread transmission of this virus”.
Until now, the best weapon against disease-carrying mosquitoes in the United States has been outdoor pesticide fog sprayed by truck and airplane. In 2008, a Colorado researcher caught the virus overseas and unknowingly spread it to his wife.
It is not the first known case of sexual transmission.
The ICMR is set to examine the vaccine and determine the feasibility of further research, the council’s Director General Soumya Swaminathan said, according to the report. Local health departments are also sorting out their approach to fight Zika.
While Thompson told the television station that the case of sexual transmission is “a game-changer”, he added that he didn’t want people in Dallas County to overreact. “We can’t say we won’t have any cases [during the games] but we see this as a minimal risk”. Disease specialists in Brazil said that the virus may be causing a surge in a birth defect. There was a case in 2013 in French Polynesia, according to the CDC website.
The Zika outbreak started in Brazil in spring 2015.
No cases of the virus have been detected in India yet, but the health ministry on Tuesday issued guidelines on the disease, including an advisory that travel to affected countries be postponed or cancelled.
“This is something we really don’t know much about”, she said.
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The outbreak of the Zika virus has infected more than 1.5 million Brazilians in recent months.
