Abortion pill requests spike in Zika outbreak countries

Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust, which funded the research, said: “Zika and dengue come from the same family of viruses and we know they share many similarities in their genetic make-up, transmission pattern and in the immune response they trigger”.

The Brazilian city of Recife and surrounding Pernambuco state remain the epicenter of the Zika virus outbreak, which has now spread to many countries in the Americas.

Benign in most people, Zika has been linked to a form of severe brain damage, called microcephaly, in babies, and to rare adult-onset neurological problems such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which can result in paralysis and death. “We wanted to see whether the antibodies isolated for dengue could be used to neutralize other flaviviruses, and Zika seemed like the best candidate”, explained Félix Rey, Head of the Structural Virology Laboratory at the Institut Pasteur.

In another study, the same research team found that an antibody that’s effective against dengue may also counter Zika.

At least 10 pregnant women in the Dallas area have been infected with Zika, Texas officials confirmed Wednesday. Dengue is common in Brazil, and the health ministry there reported a leap in cases this year.

All of the women contracted the mosquito-borne virus while traveling overseas, Dallas Health and Human Services officials told CBS News. In the first study of how the Zika virus has changed pregnant women’s reproductive habits in countries with limited access to abortion, researchers found that a rising number of women in Latin American countries had sought the abortion pill online, according to a Reuters report.

In other developments, more Zika-related birth defects were reported in the United States, along with a steep rise in the number of Puerto Ricans infected by the virus.

There is no drug for Zika but a vaccine does exist for dengue, which causes flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, muscle pain, and skin rashes similar to measles. She was not involved in the research but works on abortion issues with people in Latin American countries. One was related to a live birth and the other in a pregnancy loss situation.

Information on birth outcomes is from two different CDC Zika pregnancy registries: one that includes U.S. states and the District of Columbia, and one based in Puerto Rico.

The U.S. CDC is investigating about a dozen cases of possible sexual transmission. Once inside the cell, Zika replicates rapidly. Brazilian authorities in Brazil have confirmed more than 1,400 cases of microcephaly in babies whose mothers were exposed to Zika during pregnancy. But, when Zika is involved, health experts say children tend to fall on the more severe end of the spectrum, meaning physical and developmental impairments that could mean needing expensive health care for the rest of their lives.

“We are in the middle of hot, rainy weather, which is when mosquitoes are most prevalent”, Scott said in a statement. During a Zika forum this month, DHEC reported that the state will receive about $650,000 less from the federal government this year for its public health emergency fund. “We never expected to discover that the dengue virus and the Zika virus are so close that some antibodies produced against the dengue virus could also neutralize the Zika virus so potently” stressed Félix Rey.