First case of Zika virus in Erie County confirmed

President Dilma Rousseff said the crisis would not compromise the Olympics Brazil is hosting in August, but critics have said the move would not helping reduce mosquito numbers or stop the spread of Zika.

Now, for the first time, Zika is suspected of being the culprit behind a constellation of devastating birth defects, most notably microcephaly, a rare condition in which babies are born with head and brain abnormalities.

According to Brazil’s government, about 220,000 members of the armed forces accompanied by community health agents and mosquito control teams were deployed Saturday to help educate the population on how to eliminate mosquito breeding areas in and around their homes.

Only a day ago, Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, took to the national television network to announce startling new statistics of the Zika Virus in the country.

However, the health agency said “the cause of the increase in GBS incidence… remains unknown, especially as dengue, chikungunya and Zika virus have all been circulating simultaneously in the Americas”.

There are so far no recorded cases of Zika-linked microcephaly in Colombia, the government has said.

Experts say the virus is sweeping through parts of Latin America.

Of those, 462 cases had been confirmed and 765 discarded.

Researchers have confirmed more than 460 of these cases as microcephaly and identified evidence of Zika infection in 41 of these cases, but have not proven that Zika can cause microcephaly. The authorities are predicting about 600,000 Zika cases overall and 500 cases of microcephaly for this year.

“There have been no locally acquired Zika cases in the United States or Hawaii, and we’d like to keep it that way”, said Mr Ige.

The unidentified resident was diagnosed Wednesday but is doing well after coming down with symptoms common to the virus, County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein said Sunday.

There are now no vaccines or treatment for the virus, though research institutes and pharmaceutical companies are working on several possibilities.

An army soldier distributes a pamphlet about the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the Zika virus on the edge of the Copacabana beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016.