Brazil says 'most' of confirmed microcephaly cases linked to Zika

Feb 19, 2016, 12:36

Among other things, the report criticizes the Brazilian Ministry of Health for quickly trying to link Zika to microcephaly.

Zika virus infection can cause a mild illness with symptoms (fever, joint pain, conjunctivitis or rash) lasting for several days to a week, but 80 percent of those infected show no symptoms at all. It did not update that figure on Wednesday.

WHO Director General Margaret Chan will visit Brazil next week to meet health officials in Brasilia and visit mothers with babies suffering from microcephaly in the northeastern city of Recife, at the epicenter of the epidemic in Brazil, Castro said.

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Thus far, 50 cases of Zika have been diagnosed in the United States but all of those cases were contracted outside of the U.S., with the exception of Puerto Rico, where Zika has been transmitted, and one case in Texas where a traveler's partner got Zika through sexual contract.

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However, environmentalists have been leery of using genetically modified mosquitoes, contending there's no way to predict the impact of destroying an entire insect population, the AP said.

It also distributes Pyriproxyfen in Latin American countries such as the Dominican Republic and Colombia.

Mexico and Cuba would take the worst hits by dollar value this year, it said, reducing their GDP by $US744 million and $US664 million, respectively, as it expects the virus to cause a drop-off in Caribbean tourism.

He said there are some preventative, low-priced options: "Some of the responses won't cost lots of money, so something like controlling mosquito breeding sites is about removing stagnant places of water from around your home or around your church".

The report's lead author Dr Ana de Filippis, from the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, said: " Previous studies have identified the Zika virus in the saliva, breast milk and urine of mothers and their newborn babies, after having given birth.

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While experts have been clear that there is not scientific proof the Zika virus causes microcephaly, the evidence is becoming stronger.

In that study, researchers obtained blood samples from a random selection of 557 residents to arrive at an "estimated ratio" of a single symptomatic person for every 4.4 people who showed laboratory signs of having been infected with Zika but showed no signs of sickness. It might be that the strain of the virus here has mutated, or maybe it's interacting with another infection to result in these birth defects.

Doctors at the University Network of Environment and Health note that while Zika has been around for a long time, the birth defects are new.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month issued their highest level of alert over the prospect of Zika gaining a toehold in the U.S. President Barack Obama has asked for extra funding to combat Zika.

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