Pennsylvanians urged to read Zika virus travel advisories

Can the Zika Virus be transmitted from human to human?

“Although we are still working to establish causality with Zika, we can not tolerate the prospect of more babies being born with neurological and other malformations, and more people facing the threat of paralysis due to Guillain-Barré syndrome”, she added.

Experts emphasized that, right now, the Zika virus doesn’t pose much of a risk to people living in the United States. Investigators are scrambling to determine if it’s related to seeming increases in the birth defect known as microcephaly or to Guillain-Barre, which can leave patients temporarily paralyzed.

Zika virus has been found in Central and South America and the Caribbean, with the first cases reported in Brazil in May 2015, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The WHO said that any country with large populations of the Aedes aegypti mosquito was potentially vulnerable.

“What we do is prepare for a major outbreak”, Fauci said.

The virus produces mild symptoms, which only affect about 20 percent of those infected.

2. Whether Zika causes birth defects is under investigation.

While Health Canada has not disclosed the names of the four people infected, CKNW.com reported earlier the two B.C. cases involved people who had traveled to El Salvador and Colombia.

“I believe, if I’m not mistaken, that there are three cases in Canadians who have travelled to affected countries that have come back with documented cases of Zika virus”, said Health Minister Jane Philpott on Wednesday.

They’ll have symptoms compatible with Zika infections within a couple of weeks of leaving the endemic area. But for pregnant women, it can be a devastating problem. But the military said this week it will assign 100 doctors to help in detecting and treating cases.

The virus is linked to the development of unusually small heads and brain damage in newborns, but there have only been about 30-50 cases documented worldwide, so infection by this virus does not mean the damage will happen, just that pregnant women are at risk, according to physicians on the panel today.

Rousseff announced the offensive against the mosquito following a videoconference with five Brazilian state governors and six Cabinet members.

Pre-natal testing is important, she said.

“The government, churches, football teams, labor unions… everyone must do their part to eliminate the breeding grounds”, she said.

A total of 31 cases of Zika have been documented in the United States since previous year, all involving people who were infected while they were out of the country, Schuchat said.

An outbreak of the disease in Brazil lead to an alert by the Pan American Health Organization last May.

The Ministry for Primary Industries said yesterday that its biosecurity systems at the border were already robust and it was not scaling up its work in response to the Zika situation.