Brazil leader vows to win war against Zika-carrying mosquito

Castrodale said one group that doesn’t need to worry about travel in Zika infested regions are women who aren’t pregnant now but wish to become pregnant in the future.

Ms Chan said: “Arrival of the virus in some places has been associated with a steep increase in the birth of babies with abnormally small heads and in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome”. Presumably what happened was a traveler from Africa or Asia who had the virus in their bloodstream was bitten by a mosquito in Brazil, setting up a chain of endemic transmission of Zika virus.

“Nassau County residents are urged to heed the CDC’s travel alert, warning pregnant women to avoid travel to the 24 countries where the Zika virus is spreading and causing birth defects”, said County Executive Mangano.

The agency responsible for most of Canada’s blood supply will soon turn away donors who have travelled to countries where the mosquito-borne Zika virus is rampant.

In addition, the CDC says there have been documented cases of virus transmission during labor, blood transfusion, laboratory exposure and sexual contact.

U.S. officials have ruled out a vaccine to protect against Zika in the next few years as concerns continue to mount about the spread of the virus.

Three Canadians returned home from trips overseas with the Zika virus – two from B.C. and one in Alberta.

The race is on to develop a Zika vaccine.

There is no vaccine or cure for Zika, which has been linked to microcephaly, a serious condition that can cause lifelong developmental problems.

“There are some potential concerns that it may persist in certain protected sites, the same way that we discovered Ebola virus does”, Simor said. “The interaction of the mosquito with the virus may explain the epidemiological profile of disease transmission“. There are 200 new confirmed cases every week.

Other nations and territories include Barbados, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Colombia, Curaçao, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Maldives, Martinique, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Suriname, Tonga, Vanuatu, U.S. Virgin Islands, Venezuela, according to the WHO. There is no evidence the virus can be transmitted to babies through breast milk.

Right now, according to press reports, the outbreak is primarily in Southern and Central America.

The WHO’s Western Pacific Region Office in Manila said as long as Aedes mosquitoes circulated in the region “it can be anticipated that the virus will emerge”.

“For this reason the risk of Zika virus infection in Canada is considered very low”.

“It’s a critically important question, and the reality is we don’t really know at this point in time”, said Dr. Andrew Simor, an infectious disease specialist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.

Pregnant women and women who are breastfeeding can use insect repellent with one of the following active ingredients: DEET and Picaridin, found in such products as Off!, Cutter and Skin So Soft Bug Guard Plus. The creation of British company Oxitec, OX513A is created to stop the spread of Zika by passing along a gene that makes his offspring die.