Maine Reports First Confirmed Case of Zika Virus

Officials have confirmed the first case of a patient having Zika virus in Tarrant County. The Lab will release 250,000 genetically modified mosquitoes in two neighborhoods with a large concentration of incident cases of egypti aedes mosquito, the modified mosquitoes compete with wild mosquitoes and replace them with non-Zika transmitting mosquitoes. The mosquito-borne virus was detected in a male teenager in Kawasaki city, Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo, who stayed in Brazil, according to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Zika poses the biggest threat to pregnant women and their unborn babies, as health officials have linked it to microcephaly, a condition in which a baby is born with an abnormally small head. There is no treatment for microcephaly.

Bookings to Zika-hit parts of the Americas fell some 3.4% from a year ago between January 15, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel advisory for pregnant women, and February 10, according to a report last week by travel data analysis company ForwardKeys.

Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, told VOA that “scientists are working very hard on a vaccine but, it will be at least a year or two before it might be available”.

“This is the most concerning case of Zika so far in Queensland because it’s someone who has the virus in an area where there is the mosquito capable of transmitting the virus”, he said.

But the United Nations health agency acknowledged there were many unanswered questions, including how much Zika virus is contained in breast milk, whether mothers may pass on protective antibodies to their children from a previous Zika infection and how long the virus might persist in breast milk.

The researchers found traces of Zika in the baby’s brain and spinal fluids as well as amniotic fluid, but not in other body tissues or the placenta.

The WHO says there is no evidence that ZIka can be transmitted via breastfeeding.

Q. With confirmed cases in Pennsylvania, should people be taking precautions to avoid contracting the disease and preventing its spread?

Only five percent said, wrongly, that it is possible to get Zika by shaking hands with someone who has the disease. “We are seeing more than we expected to see”. Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on a person already infected with the virus then spread the virus to other people through bites.

The reports suggest sexual transmission may be a more likely means of spreading Zika than previously considered, the CDC said.