United Nations rights chief: Upholding women’s human rights essential to Zika response

“We’re always going to err on the side of safety”, said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden, during a Friday call with reporters.

The CDC says in the US the only confirmed cases of Zika have been transmitted through sexual contact.

Brazil has reported 3,700 suspected cases of microcephaly.

Mr Dick also said that Zika testing would be available in Townsville from March 1.

“This is not a generalized public health measure, for the love of God”, he added, stressing both the seriousness of the discovery and reality that it was too soon to say how it could impact the epidemic. However, news of Zika virus did not become widespread until mid-January 2016 when a Zika-infected baby was born in Hawaii with microcephaly.

Santos also announced that a USA medical-scientific team will arrive in Colombia to help investigate the mosquito-borne virus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stressed that the Zika (ZEE’-kuh) virus is still mainly spread by mosquito bites. In addition, a man has also been diagnosed with Zika and has developed a rare paralysis syndrome sometimes associated with viral or bacterial infection.

The case seemed to confirm two earlier scientific reports suggesting sexual transmission of Zika is possible although considered rare.

Meanwhile, U.S. health officials said men who have visited an area with Zika should use condoms if they have sex with a pregnant woman – for the entire duration of the pregnancy.

The virus causes a relatively mild infection in humans: fever, rash and conjunctivitis that lasts as long as a week.

The countries most affected by the Zika outbreak are highly catholic countries that do not allow women to have abortions. Officials have even urged pregnant women not to kiss strangers during the country’s freewheeling Carnival celebrations.

“Upholding human rights is essential to an effective public health response.

This is new to Brazil”, she said.

Paulo Gadelha, president Fiocruz, a state-run health research institute in Rio, said that cooperation was important but that it had to be tightly regulated.

The scientists were careful to clarify that there is no proof the virus can be transmitted through those fluids, but said people should take precautions, especially expecting mothers.

In a statement issued on Friday, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said the advice of some governments to women to delay getting pregnant “ignores the reality” that many women have little control over the circumstances in which that happens.

The letter warned that the outbreak may infect up to 4 million people and that “transmission is predicted to spread to all countries and territories where the Aedes aegypti is found, including the United States”.