The Zika virus that is believed to cause brain damage in infants is spreading worldwide after its outbreak in Brazil. WHO says it is likely to spread across the Americas, and the first cases have also been detected in Europe.
06 February 2016
At least 3,100 pregnant women have the Zika virus, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday. On the whole, there are 25,645 people infected with the disease in Colombia, he announced during a TV broadcast with health officials. No cases of Zika-linked microcephaly have been recorded so far, he said.
04 February 2016
Indian scientists from Bharat Biotech International say they have developed two vaccines for the Zika virus, which will now move to clinical trials. If the trials are successful, around one million doses of the vaccine could potentially be available in four months, the company's managing director, Krishna Ella, told NDTV.
A pregnant woman is among seven people found to be infected with the Zika virus in Spain. The woman – who is in her third trimester of pregnancy – had traveled to Colombia and was presumably infected during her visit, according to the Spanish Health Ministry. No details were released about her condition, or the condition of her child. She remains under medical supervision in Catalonia. The six other infected parties had also traveled to affected countries.
03 February 2016
The first travel-related Zika virus case has been confirmed in the US state of Georgia, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health. The infected had traveled to Colombia between the end of December and the January 1 and has already recovered. Some more tests of people who traveled to Zika-affected areas are currently underway.
“It is extremely important that individuals who have traveled to countries where there are ongoing Zika virus outbreaks keep guard against additional mosquito bites,” said Cherie Drenzek, D.V.M, state epidemiologist for DPH, local media reports.
“During the first week or so of infection, Zika virus can be passed from an infected person to another mosquito through mosquito bites. An infected mosquito can then transmit the virus to other people,” Drenzek added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed concern over US reports of a case of sexual transmission of the Zika virus.
"We certainly understand the concern. This needs to be further investigated to understand the conditions and how often or likely sexual transmission is, and whether or not other body fluids are implicated," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told Reuters.
"This is only the second mooted case of sexual transmission," he added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned Europe that it should take measures to prevent the spread of the Zika virus, which is more likely to happen in spring and summer when mosquitos are active.
The UN agency recommended that European countries control the mosquito population and inform people, especially pregnant women, about the risks. In a statement, it advised the enhancement of laboratory detection of Zika, a stepping up of research into the virus, and the development of diagnostic tests and vaccines.
The WHO said there is no need for travel or trade restrictions.
02 February 2016
The Australian state health service has confirmed two Zika cases which are the first ones in the country this year, Reuters reported. Both of the infected had recently returned home from trips to the Caribbean.
Officials also said that mosquitoes carrying the virus were detected at Sydney International Airport but pointed out that the spread of Zika is unlikely to happen because of the lack of large numbers of the Aedes Aegypti mosquitos.
The first Zika case has been confirmed in Dallas County, Texas, a local affiliate of NBC television network reports. The virus has been transmitted through sexual contact according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Local health officials say there are no reports of Zika transmissions by mosquitoes in the area but still there is a threat of the virus spreading due to people coming from affected areas.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said that the government is not going to be thrifty with its resources in mobilizing the country to fight the rapidly spreading Zika virus.
"There will be no lack of funding," Rousseff said in an address to a joint session of Brazil's Congress as cited by Reuters.
She also added that Brazil and the US will cooperate to create a vaccine against the virus.
The first Zika case has been confirmed in Chile, local broadcaster 24 Horas reported citing the Chilean association of infectious diseases. The infected man is said to have traveled to Colombia which is one of the most Zika-affected countries.
The Rio 2016 Olympics organizing committee has said it is worried by the spread of the Zika virus which is spreading rapidly across the Latin America, and particularly Brazil.
Mario Andrada, communications director of the committee however said that there is still no evidence of a mass cancellation of travel to the Olympic Games which will be held in Rio de Janeiro in August. "Tickets have not been returned nor trips canceled," he told reporters.
Thailand confirmed its first domestic case of the Zika virus this year. Authorities said that a 22-year-old Thai man is likely to have the same strain of the virus that is spreading in Latin America.
“His symptoms were a fever, a rash and redness of the eyes,” Air Vice Marshall Santi Srisermpoke, director of Bangkok's Bhumibol Adulyadej Hospital said as cited by AFP, adding that the man had not traveled abroad.
Health officials say it is not the first ever domestic Zika case and have called on people not to fall into panic.
“It's not a new disease in Thailand... we had the first confirmed case in 2012. Since then we have an average of not more than five cases yearly,” Amnuay Gajeena, director-general of the Disease Control Department of the Public Health Ministry said, AFP reported.
“There is no need to panic... we have never had an epidemic of the Zika virus in Thailand all of the cases were one-offs,” he added.
Brazilian authorities also said that there is no threat that the Olympics could be canceled
“We have to explain to those coming to Brazil, the athletes, that there is zero risk if you are not a pregnant women,” the Brazilian president's chief of staff Jaques Wagner said as cited by Reuters.
Amid the growing concerns about the spread of the virus, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has asked for $9 million for its programs in Latin America aimed at curbing the virus and lessening its impact on babies and their families. The agency is going to focus on educating Brazilian communities about how to avoid mosquito bites, which are believed to be the main transmitters of the disease, and how to destroy their breeding sites.
“Although there is still no conclusive evidence of the causal link between microcephaly and the Zika virus, there is enough concern to warrant immediate action,” Dr. Heather Papowitz, UNICEF's senior adviser for health emergencies said, as cited by AP.
01 February 2016
The Zika epidemic in Brazil is worse than previously thought, Health Minister Marcelo Castro warned in an interview with Reuters. He said that in 80 percent of cases the infected people display no symptoms and the virus cannot be transmitted person-to-person, only via mosquito bites.
He announced that the reporting of cases by local governments will become mandatory next week and added that Brazil will follow in the steps of the US by prohibiting blood donations by Zika infected persons.
The World Health Organization's (WHO) director-general, Margaret Chan, will convene an emergency committee Monday on the Zika virus outbreak to ascertain whether the outbreak constitutes a public health emergency of international concern.
31 January 2016
There are currently over 20 thousand confirmed cases of the Zika virus in Columbia, and over 2 thousand of them are pregnant women, according to the figures provided by the national health institute.
30 January 2016
Genekam, a German biotechnology company, has created technology that can not only reveal the presence of Zika pathogens in a blood sample, but also shed light on the quantity in the patient’s blood, Deutsche Welle (DW) reports. The new test can therefore definitely determine if a person is a carrier of the Zika virus, as only one in five people infected actually become ill. Until now, the only way to determine if someone had the illness was to wait to see if the disease’s distinctive symptoms appeared.
The Zika virus may have been caused by the presence of genetically-modified mosquitoes (GMMs) in Brazil, health experts have suggested.
In mid-2012, British biotech company Oxitec released the super bugs with the aim of reducing the overall mosquito population that spreads dengue fever, the Zika virus, and chikungunya in northeast Brazil. The Aedes aegypti mosquito sub-species that carries both the Zika virus and dengue is the very type Oxitec targeted with its GMMs.
29 January 2016
There are two recorded cases when the highly dangerous Zika virus may have been transmitted through sexual intercourse, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.
“There is one reported case of the Zika virus through possible sexual transmission," said Anna Schuchat, deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), referring to the case of a 44-year-old Tahiti man who contracted the virus during its outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013.
There were five confirmed cases of the Zika virus in Germany between October 2015 and January 2016, a spokeswoman for the German health ministry said on Friday.
“Russia’s consumer protection watchdog Rospotrebnadzor constantly monitors air passengers amid Zika virus threat,” said Anna Popova, the head of the watchdog on Friday.
“We continuously monitor the situation, people with fever - which is an important symptom - are identified and our specialists work with them,” added Popova.
She also mentioned that the Russian Institute of Epidemiology has developed a test kit, able to diagnose the virus.
Austrian authorities confirmed the first case of the Zika virus in the country. An infected woman is said to display “mild symptoms of the Zika virus after returning from Brazil.” The woman is not pregnant and is expected to make a full recovery. The head of the Tropical Medicine Institute, Prof. Pamela Rendi-Wagner, said there is still no risk of infection outbreak in Austria, as the Aedes mosquito is not present in the region, local media report.
28 January 2016
French Health Minister Marisol Touraine urged pregnant women not to travel to France's overseas territories for fear of contracting the Zika virus. "This is a serious epidemic and I want to voice my concern," she told France Info radio on Thursday. "I very strongly urge pregnant women in mainland France to postpone their trip if they're planning to go to Martinique, French Guiana or the other overseas territories.”
The Zika virus is strongly suspected of causing birth defects and may infect 3 million to 4 million people in the Americas, including 1.5 million in Brazil, Marcos Espinal, head of communicable diseases at PAHO – the WHO's Americas arm – said Thursday. Espinal said a study would soon be published suggesting a correlation between Zika and microcephaly, the phenomenon of babies born with small heads and brains, in Brazil.
"We don't know yet if this virus crosses the placenta and generates or causes microcephaly. We think it plays a role. There's no doubt about that," he told the WHO's executive board meeting in Geneva, Reuters reported.
The UN’s World Health Organization says it is convening an emergency committee Monday to decide if the Zika virus should be declared an international health emergency.
At a special meeting Thursday, WHO Director General Margaret Chan said the virus was "spreading explosively," AP reported. Chan said although there was no definitive proof that Zika was responsible for a spike in the number of babies being born with abnormally small heads in Brazil, “the level of alarm is extremely high.”
Russian scientists will develop and patent the first “express method” to diagnose the Zika virus by March 2016, Russia’s consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said on Thursday, according to RIA Novosti.
Two cases of the Zika virus were registered in Germany in December, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Robert Koch Institute revealed Thursday. Two Germans were diagnosed with the infection after they had returned from Haiti. However, the institute’s spokesman called on Germans not to worry about the virus’s possible spread, as “the mosquitoes are not in Germany and it would be extremely difficult for them to come,” adding that though they can`t “rule anything out, but it would be very, very, very unlikely.” The German Foreign Ministry issued a warning in December, advising pregnant women not to “make unnecessary trips to areas of the Zika outbreak.”
27 January 2016
Russian President Vladimir Putin has tasked the Health Ministry with developing a vaccine against the Zika virus and increasing cooperation with transport companies and air carriers top prevent its distribution around the globe.
“There's some other stuff that’s moving from Latin America; another virus, which is spread by mosquitoes. Mosquitoes, of course, won’t be able to fly over the ocean, but infected people can. The virus has already appeared in Europe,” the president said.
Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova assured the head of state that the situation around Zika virus has been “kept under scrutiny” since the start of the current outbreak.
A total of 19 people have tested positive for Zika virus in Puerto Rico, although none were pregnant women, according to the island's health secretary.
“An infected person must have come, who infected a population of mosquitoes, which in turn infected a local population, permitting the spread of the disease,” Puerto Rico’s Health Secretary Ana Rius said, as quoted by France 24.
American and United Airlines say they will allow some customers to cancel or postpone their trips if they are scheduled to fly to areas affected by the Zika virus.
United says its policy will include any areas listed in the CDC's alert, while American's policy so far includes flights to four destinations in Central America.
“We are offering customers who are traveling to the affected regions the opportunity to rebook at a later date or receive a full refund,” United spokesman Charles Hobart told Today in the Sky on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for Sweden's Public Health Agency (Folkhälsomyndigheten) has told The Local that a Swede was diagnosed with Zika virus as early as July 2015.
Although she did not provide further details, she did say it is understood that the individual was never seriously ill.
Singapore's government has announced it will introduce measures to control the risk of the Zika virus.
We "will implement a set of control measures to reduce the risk of the Zika virus becoming entrenched in Singapore," the government said on Wednesday. Those measures include advisory posters at the airport for outbound travelers, and hospitalizing all confirmed cases, according to Reuters.
Singapore is already battling the potentially fatal dengue fever.
US President Barack Obama has called for urgent action against the Zika virus, stating that research to develop vaccines and treatments must be accelerated.
One person has tested positive for the Zika virus in Denmark, according to Danish media. The new case comes after Italy, Spain, the UK and Switzerland registered several people infected with the disease.
A young girl from Los Angeles County, California has tested positive for the virus, according to officials cited by the Los Angeles Times. The girl had recently traveled to El Salvador.
Brazil has announced that it will deploy 220,000 troops for a day next month to spread awareness about the Zika virus.
It comes after the country's top health official acknowledge that the nation is "badly losing the battle" against mosquito-borne diseases.
26 January 2016
Two causes of Zika virus have surfaced in Switzerland, according to federal health authorities cited by The Local.
The virus was detected in two people who had returned from tropical countries, according to the federal office of public health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has added the US Virgin Islands and the Dominican Republic to its Zika virus travel alerts, according to Reuters.
The Arkansas Department of Health has confirmed that a resident has tested positive for Zika virus. Another case was confirmed in Virginia, according to the Associated Press.
Four cases of Zika virus have been recorded in Italy. All of the cases involve people who have recently returned from Latin America and the Caribbean, La Repubblica reported.
25 January 2016
The CDC says it is imperative to avoid mosquito bites when it comes to the Zika virus.
The WHO says that women planning to travel to areas where Zika is circulating should consult their healthcare provider before traveling, as well as upon their return home.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus is set to spread in all countries across the Americas, except Canada and Chile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.