In Rio, Olympics working to help prevent Zika

The CDC’s latest report on Zika also states that the virus “can also be transmitted from a pregnant mother to her baby during pregnancy or around the time of birth”, which, understandably has pregnant women scared.

The Zika Virus his a recent arrival in Brazil, but the mosquito that spreads the disease, Aedes Aegypti, is well known and an old problem for health authorities here.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) extended its travel warning on Friday to a further eight countries or territories – including Cape Verde – that pose a risk of infection with Zika, bringing the total to 22.

Brazil said the number of babies born with suspected microcephaly – or abnormally small heads – had reached almost 4,000 since October. “What we do know is that if there are no mosquitoes, there is no virus”.

For most people, the effects of the Zika virus are mild.

The Ministry of Health has recorded more than 3,700 cases of microcephaly in the 13 months since the beginning of 2015.

“If a person is infected and then travels to a country where the Aedes mosquito is present, the mosquito can bite the person and thereby introduce the virus in a place where it previously did not exist”, Bellei said.

Health workers fumigate to prevent Dengue, Chikunguya and Zika virus, at El Angel cemetery, in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, Jan 20, 2016.

“For pregnant people, it is very serious because it causes deformities in the baby’s brain”. But microcephaly typically does not become apparent on ultrasounds until later in pregnancies, often after the 24th week when many U.S. states prohibit abortion.

The Health Secretariat has issued an emergency declaration after confirming 18 cases of people infected with Zika fever, although it clarified that the situation does not warrant an epidemiological alert. That same year, Australia also reported a case of Zika fever in a returning citizen from Indonesia.

“While many of us are convinced and believe it’s highly plausible that Zika virus caused this epidemic of Guillain-Barre, and can cause it anywhere the virus is being transmitted, we still lack really firm evidence to make that diagnosis”, said Ko, who has conducted research in northeastern Brazil for two decades.

In Brazil, authorities have announced a crackdown on mosquito breeding grounds ahead of the Olympics, which will bring hundreds of thousands of travelers from around the world to Rio de Janeiro in August.

The message was that pregnant women, or women considering becoming pregnant, should exercise “enhanced precautions” when traveling to these places: Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.