The WHO has said that the mosquito-borne virus is spreading in the Americas and there might be up to four million cases this year.
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The Indiana State Department of Health announced the first Indiana case in a non-pregnant resident who had also recently traveled to Haiti.
The finding suggests that the mosquito-spread virus may unexpectedly hang around in the body for much longer than symptoms appear, which typically only last for about a week. Researchers there are working to determine whether Zika has caused a big rise in cases of microcephaly, a birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and may have developmental problems.
The FDOH has put every county with a confirmed case of Zika under a public health emergency, so Alachua County has now joined that list. Of those, 462 cases have been confirmed while 765 have been discarded.
There are now confirmed Zika cases in eight Florida counties, with seven in Miami-Dade.
The situation caused by the rapid spread of Zika led WHO to declare an global health emergency on February 1.
Although the link has not been scientifically proven and myriad questions remain, Castro said the half-year gap between the virus outbreak in South America’s largest country and the spike in reported cases of microcephaly was not a coincidence.
“These epidemics seem to burn themselves out”, he said.
Castro, who will be traveling to the capital of the northeastern state of Bahia to oversee the “Zero Zika” campaign there, called on his compatriots to join the battle to eliminate Zika.
The confirmation comes after a pregnant woman in the northern state of Queensland was diagnosed with the virus on Tuesday.
The BBC’s Wyre Davies, in Rio de Janeiro, said the exercise was aimed at boosting morale.
Many scientists are convinced the link between Zika and birth defects is real. Sporadic cases of infection acquired via this route have already been reported in the literature.
Speaking at an American Association for the Advancement of Science news conference in Washington, another World Health Organization official, Christopher Dye, reiterated the agency’s strong suspicion. The cases are not linked, officials said.
Castro rebutted the Times’ depiction in her opinion piece, pointing out that the reporter’s shock at how few Brazilians were following the worldwide recommendation to wear long sleeves and trousers during the country’s scorching summer heat – which can top out at 104 degrees Fahrenheit in some cities – was a form of US media bias. NIH works on vaccine that is DNA-based and works like the one developed for West Nile virus.
There is no vaccine for Zika.
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She said an estimated 20 companies were at various stages of development for a range of diagnostic methods and that rapid testing systems which can be particularly useful in more remote areas were a priority.
