No need to panic over Mass. first case of Zika virus

The Texas Department of State Health Services was encouraging people to follow travel precautions for regions and certain countries where Zika virus transmission is ongoing. The ailment results in an abnormally small head in newborns and is associated with various disorders including decreased brain development.

Dr. Diana Huang, OBGYN said, “The zika virus can be transmitted from the mom to the fetus. It’s generally mild fever, rash, joint, muscle pain and conjunctivitis which is red, irritated eyes”.

They prefer, instead, that patients look and listen to the clinic’s message and avoid the risk.

In the United States, it is a very different situation from the Zika epidemic in Brazil, where there were an estimated 1 million people infected by Zika by the end of 2015.

The Zika virus outbreak in Brazil prompted a petition for more access to legal abortion. Health authorities have issued a national alert against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, vector of the Zika virus which might cause microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Brazil’s health minister says the country will mobilize some 220,000 troops to battle the mosquito blamed for spreading a virus linked to birth defects.

Some of the areas where Zika has been detected are in need of supplies to help prevent the further spread of the virus. That’s all to the good: Those mosquitoes also spread dengue fever and yellow fever, plagues of poor nations that kill tens of thousands yet until now have failed to attract the resources or attention needed to eradicate them.

Dr. Kurt Barnhart, chair of the Pennsylvania section of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said the virus isn’t to be taken lightly, but isn’t as serious as many fear. Approximately one in five people infected with the virus show symptoms.

Professor Suresh Mahalingam, an expert in mosquito-borne viruses at Griffith University who is researching Zika, said an outbreak in Australia was possible.

A law professor involved in the anencephaly case and also involved in the Zika petition said early detection of microcephaly and access to contraception are also concerns.