More than 2100 pregnant Colombian women infected with Zika virus

Pregnant women Maria Camila Davila (L) and Angelica Prato (R), infected by the Zika virus, wait to be attended at the Erasmo Meoz University Hospital in Cucuta, Colombia, on January 25, 2016.

Zika is a mosquito-borne virus whose symptoms are similar to dengue fever. It took until early May for the health ministry to recognise that the Zika virus had arrived in Brazil and to alert the WHO’s regional arm, the Washington-based Pan American Health Organisation.

Although research is still underway, significant evidence in Brazil shows a link between Zika infections and rising cases of microcephaly, a neurological disorder in which infants are born with smaller craniums and brains.

The last such public health emergency was declared for the devastating 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which killed more than 11,000 people.

Zika has hit Brazil just as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on August 5-21, an event that draws hundreds of thousands of athletes, team officials and spectators.

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… For that reason, the CDC is recommending that women who are pregnant or may become pregnant not to travel to the 24 countries where the disease is widespread.

But the virus can be very serious for women of child-bearing age.

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. It has reported around 3,700 cases of microcephaly strongly suspected to be related to Zika.

The World Health Organization warned this week that the virus is “spreading explosively” in the Americas, with three million to four million cases expected this year. The spread of the virus has impacted conversations about prevention, travel and even health policy. According to Vocativ, as of 2008, about 73 percent of women in El Salvador used some form of birth control, including female sterilization.

“We’ve repeatedly urged people not to be hard-headed and keep their surroundings clean and mosquito-free”.