Brazil says ‘most’ of confirmed microcephaly cases linked to Zika

The Zika virus causes a rare birth defect which means babies have unusually small heads, 32 centimetres or less in circumference, and it can cause lasting developmental problems.

Columbus Public Health is trying to stay one step ahead of the Zika virus by launching an aggressive public-awareness campaign and beefing up monitoring during mosquito season. Cases of Zika have been reported among travelers who have visited some of the 30 nations affected within Latin America and the Caribbean. The placental barrier regulates which substances cross from mother to child. “Questions that we urgently need to answer include what is the added risk of microcephaly if a woman has Zika virus infection in pregnancy, is the timing of infection during pregnancy important, and does Zika virus infection alone cause this birth defect or is a co-factor involved”.

In 2015, the number of reported cases of babies with microcephaly in Brazil increased 20-fold when compared with previous years.

The World Health Organization has said that it supports trials of genetically modified mosquitos in an effort to combat the Zika virus, which has created panic as it spreads.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito is the type that’s now spreading Zika.

“We are issuing this guidance for immediate implementation in order to better protect the USA blood supply”, said Dr. Luciana Borio, the FDA’s acting chief scientist.

The FDA said people at risk of having been infected should not donate blood for at least four weeks. “There’s insufficient evidence to very carefully know what the exact risk of Zika virus is to pregnant women”.

About four out of five people infected with Zika virus do not become ill, which makes it tougher to determine whose blood might carry the pathogen, the agency noted.

Canada and France have already announced similar measures, which are recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The FDA recommends people living in places without active Zika transmission to maintain the safe status of their areas.

He advised pregnant women not to travel to Zika outbreak areas.

Blood centers may still collect and prepare blood components, provided that they carry FDA-approved pathogen-reduction equipment. Active virus transmission is confirmed as far north as Mexico, with some travel-associated cases in the U.S.

Zika was first identified by two Scots, virologist George Dick and entomologist Alexander Haddow, in a forest near Entebbe in Uganda in 1947. The study has declared that 460 of these cases are of microcephaly while 41 of these cases are of zika, but yet no association between both has been found.