The first two Zika cases in Saint Lucia have been confirmed by the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), the island nation’s Ministry of Health, Wellness, Human Services and Gender Relations announced. President Obama has also requested $1.8 billion in emergency funding to study and respond to the virus. The team led by Purdue also identified regions within the Zika virus structure where it differs from other flaviviruses, the family of viruses to which Zika belongs that includes dengue, West Nile, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis and tick-borne encephalitic viruses.
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Federal officials said Wednesday they’re raiding $500 million in money aimed at fighting Ebola to use against Zika instead because Congress won’t approve new Zika funding.
Republicans on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee said they would monitor the changing needs that will result from this unpredictable crisis. Still, with mosquito season fast approaching, more than half of the population supports a variety of efforts to control summer swarms – from spraying pesticides to releasing genetically modified mosquitoes, says the poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
A large number of Americans have heard little or nothing about the Zika virus, according to a new poll Thursday that shows found most people in the USA are not terribly concerned about an outbreak here.
So far, there have been no Zika infections in the US caught from mosquitoes. That is why, until this year, the current outbreak that began in May 1985 in Brazil has primarily been limited to South American and Central American countries.
The Ministry reports that the other case was located in Oropouche and that the virus was locally acquired in both cases.
“The vectoring that we’re going to do is going to be based on demand”, Gimenez said, “and obviously we’re going to step it up when we have a threat”. In the meantime, the CDC has issued travel guidance for women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant.
“There’s not one case that’s actually transmitted here, and we want to keep it that way”, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said.
The disease can be transmitted through sex with an infected partner, but the vast majority of cases have been spread by the Aedes mosquito, which is present throughout the Southern United States.
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“While a drug or a vaccine might be highly useful, if we don’t know where a disease is or if we can’t detect it rapidly, we can’t deploy drugs and vaccines effectively”.
