Spain reports pregnant woman among those infected by Zika

The World Health Organization emphasized Wednesday that avoiding mosquito bites is the best way to reduce harm from Zika virus.

Spain said Thursday, February 4, that a pregnant woman who had returned from Colombia had been diagnosed with the Zika virus, in the first such known European case. He sought to assure people that Florida, a hub for cruises and flights to Central and South America where the outbreak is, was safe. It is believed to be linked to 4000 babies in Brazil born with abnormally small heads. That case, reported in November, involved a girl who had traveled to El Salvador late previous year and later recovered.

There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika. The agency asked donors who give blood and subsequently develop symptoms consistent with Zika within 14 days to notify the Red Cross so the product can be quarantined.

Scott dismissed questions from reporters that his actions could make tourists wary about visiting the state if they are concerned about the Zika virus.

“The two cases can be considered transmission of the virus through blood transfusion, with greater certainty in the first because we did genetic sequencing comparing the virus in the donor and to the virus in the recipient”. Window screens, netting over beds, and removal of standing water where aedes aegypti mosquitoes that spread the virus can breed are all effective measures, health officials said. The health minister says “there is no need to panic”…noting that since 2012, Thailand has had a few cases-“averaging not more than five a year”.

Only 20 percent of people who have the virus get symptoms. The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting several days to a week, Dallas County health officials said.

Brazil’s Health Ministry said two-thirds of the Zika samples collected in the country during recent fieldwork performed with a team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would be sent to the United States, after export of the samples was approved by a medical ethics review board.

Additionally, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now recommending that pregnant women abstain from sex or utilize condoms for all sexual activities for the duration of their pregnancies if their male partner has traveled to or lives in an area with active Zika virus transmission.

The fever starts with a mosquito bite and normally causes little more than a fever and rash.

Uruguay will go ahead with a World Cup qualifier scheduled next month in Recife, the Brazilian city at the center of an outbreak of the Zika virus.

DOH has issued a Health Advisory to coordinate the statewide response to Zika virus.

President Obama has spoken to Brazil’s president, and scientists hope that “an exception can be made because of Brazil’s pandemic to allow biological materials to be freely shared”, the scientist said.