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BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — The head of the World Health Organization said Tuesday she is confident Brazil can host the Rio Olympics safely despite the Zika threat, though she warned of a long battle against the mosquito-borne virus. Margaret Chan, who was in Brazil for a 48-hour visit, praised the Brazilian government’s efforts to stamp out mosquitoes and its coordination with various international bodies, including the WHO and the International Olympic Movement, ahead of the Games’ kick-off […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday urged caution about linking the Zika virus with a rare nerve disorder called Guillain-Barre which health officials in Colombia have blamed for three deaths. “Yes, we have seen cases of death from Guillain-Barre syndrome, three have been reported. But I would urge caution” on linking it with Zika, WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said. Colombia last Friday said three people had died after contracting the […]
Unsanitary conditions in Brazil’s slum areas are provided potential breeding grounds for Aedes mosquitoes that can transmit viruses including Zika and dengue. In the city of Recife, capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, ditches are found with waste water and even other garbage discharged by local residents, with foul smells given out from time to time. Algae and weeds have grown in the water, and rat carcasses as well as other floating garbage […]
ECUADORIAN authorities confirmed 22 cases of Zika, including the first reported case of a pregnant woman with the virus in the Andean nation. According to Ecuador’s National Institute of Public Health Investigations (INSPI) the woman is 19-years-old and is in the 27th week of her pregnancy. The institute has said the woman’s condition is stable and they do not believe the baby is at risk of microcephaly because the mother is at the end of her […]
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 (PNA/Xinhua) — The first locally transmitted case of Zika virus in the United States has been reported in a county in Texas, the county’s health department said Tuesday. Dallas County Health and Human Services said in a statement that the patient was infected with the virus after having sexual contact with an ill individual who returned from a country where Zika virus is present. For medical confidentiality and personal privacy reasons, the […]
World Health Organization (WHO) official Thursday said the Zika virus is spreading quickly in the Americas and the “level of alarm is extremely high”. Speaking to WHO members in Geneva, WHO director-general Margaret Chan said, “Cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the region.” This is the first time in decades that the disease has spread in such a large scale among humans since it was first identified in 1947, according to […]
Zika virus – linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil – is spreading “explosively”, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday (January 28). Director-general Margaret Chan told members of WHO’s executive board in Geneva that the spread of the mosquito-borne disease had gone from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions. “Last year, the virus was detected in the Americas, where it is now spreading explosively. As of today, […]
The mosquito-borne Zika virus may be running rampant throughout Brazil, but many tourists in Rio de Janeiro for the world famous Carnival remain undaunted. The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday (January 28) the Zika virus, linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil, is “spreading explosively” and may infect 3 to 4 million people in the Americas, including 1.5 million in Brazil. Still, all seemed calm in a rainy Rio […]
Argentina’s Ministry of Health confirmed its first Zika case on Tuesday, according to Clarin, a local newspaper. The infected person is a 23-year-old Colombian woman living in Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires. She was suspected to be infected with Zika virus after she finished her travel to Columbia. She went to a private hospital to diagnose and her blood sample was then tested in Pergamino Virus Research Center. The confirmation of the first Zika case means […]
Hilda Venancio da Silva holds nurses her three-month-old son Matheus, born in October with microcephaly, a tragic neurological complication linked to Zika, the mosquito-borne virus sparking a health scare across the Americas. But she is not alone. In the hospital where he was born, dozens of other mothers also gave birth to infants with abnormally small heads. More than 1,000 cases of microcephaly have been reported in just a few months in Pernambuco state, the […]
