Third Zika case confirmed in Illinois: health officials

The agency responsible for most of Canada’s blood supply will soon turn away donors who have travelled to countries where the mosquito-borne Zika virus is rampant.

But work is underway towards developing a vaccine for the Zika virus. The best we can do right now is figure out ways to control mosquito populations, she said.

The company has already been running the project to try and wipe out the Aedes Aegypti mosquito in the Brazilian city of Piracicaba for more than a year.

“Most mosquitoes today are reproducing inside the home”.

Beth Ranson, Florida Keys Mosquito Control District.

Castrodale said one group that doesn’t need to worry about travel in Zika infested regions are women who aren’t pregnant now but wish to become pregnant in the future. Earlier this month, the Florida Health Department confirmed three travel-related cases in Florida.

Two of those people were from B.C and another was from Alberta. The third was in Hillsborough County, where a person contracted the virus in Venezuela.

So far there have been no transmissions of the disease within the United States.

Health authorities there are investigating the possible linkage between Zika and more than 3,400 suspected cases of microcephaly – abnormally small skulls and brains – in babies born to infected mothers.

She says the cleanup operation began Friday at all installations run by the armed forces and at all federal educational, health and other facilities.

From Brazil, the virus has spread rapidly through the Americas.

“The mosquitoes are here in the USA now”, Martinez said. “You are always afraid of the unknown”. It provokes flu-like symptoms including a low-grade fever, headaches, joint pain and rashes.

There is no vaccine or medications to treat the virus.

Officials from the Ministry of Health say there are four cases where Canadians contracted the Zika virus while overseas.

Health officials in the US state of Virginia said Tuesday a man there tested positive for the virus, but that there was no risk of it spreading to others because it is not mosquito season there. These are EPA-registered insect repellents.

The CDC’s travel advisory recommends the same.

“I think if it’s just going for a vacation, I would encourage them to look for a different vacation spot”.

Venezuelan Health Minister Luisana Melo said her country’s seen 255 cases of Guillain-Barre, apparently as part of its effort to fight Zika, though she did not specify the link or the time frame.

There are 20,297 confirmed cases of the disease in Colombia, the national health institute said in a epidemiology bulletin, among them 2,116 pregnant women. This type of mosquito likes to live indoors as well as outdoors.

Another private vaccine developer, Boston-based Replikins Ltd, said it was preparing to start animal studies on a Zika vaccine in the next 10 days. “But if your child gets bitten in South Florida, don’t panic”.