United Kingdom asks airlines to spray insecticide to fight Zika virus

The spread of the virus has put the Rio Olympics in the spotlight with the Games’ authorities working to eradicate the mosquito that has been attributed as the principal cause of the outbreak. That’s why the new recommendation for precautions during sex is for a woman’s entire pregnancy.

WA Health’s chief health officer, Tarun Weeramanthri, said there was no risk to people who had not recently travelled to a Zika-affected country.

Queensland Health public health physician Dr Andrew Langley said the fact the Coast had only a handful of dengue cases a year also indicated that the capacity for a local Zika outbreak was limited.

CDC also advises that pregnant women postpone travel to any area where the virus is being transmitted, and that those who have traveled to one of the endemic countries and have two or more symptoms within two weeks of travel should be tested.

“We know that this is anxiety-provoking for women who are pregnant and [for] their families”, Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a news conference today (Feb. 5). The agency noted that Zika infection is usually mild, and about 80 percent of people who are infected with the virus have no symptoms at all.

Researchers have been able to trace the gradual spread of Zika – slowly for decades and then, in the words of World Health Organization head Dr. Margaret Chan, “explosively” since 2015, when it was first detected in Brazil.

President Juan Orlando Hernandez has allocated an initial tranche of $10 million in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus. They also add men and non-pregnant women to the list of those who should consider their sexual risk from the virus, calling it a “complex and personal decision”.

The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for their part urged people to use condoms or abstain from having sex if they live in or have traveled to Zika-infected areas.

Much about the virus, including whether it can be transmitted from person to person, remains unclear.

Officials believe the patients contracted the virus through mosquito bites during their travels.

Women’s reproductive rights are a touchy subject in largely Catholic Latin America, where an outbreak of the virus is blamed for causing brain damage in babies and a potentially paralyzing nerve disorder.

The people most seriously affected are pregnant women and their fetuses.

To date, the mosquito-borne virus has spread to more than 20 countries in the Americas, including some where sexual violence is rampant, Al Hussein said.

Rio de Janeiro’s municipal tourism secretary Antonio Pedro Figueira de Mello said he’s still expecting a strong turnout for Carnival.