WHO Convenes Zika Virus Emergency Meeting

The only way to avoid catching it is to avoid getting bitten by the Aedes mosquitoes that transmit the infection.

The WHO predicts the virus, which may be linked to neurological disorders in babies, could infect as many as 4 million people in the Americas this year.

The Center for Disease and Control has put out travel alerts for several countries including Columbia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico.

Additionally, Schumer says the USA should push the World Health Organization to publicly declare a health emergency.

Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general, described Zika as a major problem after the first meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee in Geneva, Switzerland.

Earlier figures from the health ministry showed 560 pregnant women had the disease, out of more than 13,500 infections. In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants.

Health officials say an adolescent girl who traveled from Los Angeles County to El Salvador late past year was infected with the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus.

“We’re expecting a lot of travel-associated cases,”Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director for the CDC, said on Thursday”.

Castro said Brazilian researchers are convinced that Zika is the cause of the 3,700 confirmed and suspected cases in Brazil of microcephaly in newborns.

The organisation was criticised for not doing more to prevent the spread of the virus.

Hartl dismissed fears that the Zika virus could pose a threat similar to that of Ebola, which caused more than 11,000 deaths in West Africa.

“By any means this [Zika] is a public health emergency with the sheer numbers of people who are coming down with a flu-like syndrome, but particularly the complications”.

Athletes preparing for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio say they’re taking precautions, including staying indoors and using mosquito repellent.

Jitters over Zika have spread far beyond the affected areas to Europe and North America, where dozens of cases have been identified among people returning from vacation or business overseas.

Whitworth said it was important for World Health Organization to act quickly, despite definitive evidence that Zika is responsible for the surge in microcephaly cases.