Colombia has more than 2000 Zika cases in pregnant women

The Zika virus is “spreading explosively” in the Americas and can infect upto four million people, the World Health Organization warned yesterday as it issued a warning to all countries, including India.

There have been travel-related cases of Zika virus reported in Canada in travellers returning from countries where the virus is known to circulate, Health Canada states on its website.

Brazil is seeing a wave of such birth defects.

For pregnant women, an infection could be serious and impact the health of their babies. That’s a real problem though, because they can unknowingly spread the virus to other Aedes mosquitoes and with global travel the disease keeps spreading.

It also recommended that couples delay attempts to become pregnant for six to eight months.

When asked if she was concerned about being around her mother when she gets back, Jamie said, “I don’t have any concerns right now”.

There are two potential Zika vaccines in development, but no commercially available vaccine or cure is available at the moment.

The Nigeria Center for Disease Control has commenced Zika virus diagnosis as part of ongoing effort to manage the present Lassa fever outbreak in the country, the senior health official said.

There have been cases of women who were infected by the virus while pregnant and later gave birth to babies with microcephaly, a condition in which a baby’s head is smaller than expected. “If you are pregnant you should try to limit your travel to those areas”.

“Because Zika virus is primarily transmitted by infected mosquitoes, there is very limited chance of local transmission in New York during the winter”, said NY Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, according to ABC. The first confirmed infactions were in Brazil.

Boukouris says there have been no reported cases at Providence. The travelers were infected overseas and diagnosed after they returned home.

The virus’ symptoms tend to be slight, and include fever, rash, pain or conjunctivitis.

“They don’t have a curent treatment right now so we are waiting to see if they develop anything”, Boukouris said.