On Friday 16 January The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel alert in which warned people on the risks of travelling to the American countries affected by the Zika virus, linked to a microcephaly epidemic in Brazil.
19 january 2016
According to the CDCs, pregnant women should avoid travelling to areas with Zika virus outbreaks. Regarding the women that cannot avoid travelling, they must talk to their doctors and take the necessary measures to avoid the mosquito bites, such as the use of long-sleeves and trousers. On the other hand, the women that want to get pregnant should also talk to their doctors before travelling to the infected areas.
Puerto Rico announced the first Zika case in December. The case was diagnosed in a person who had not left Puerto Rico, what suggests that the virus spreads also there. Other affected countries for the Zika virus are Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guyana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Surinam and Venezuela, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
Even though the Zika infection causes mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, the public health officials are concerned because the outbreak in Brazil has corresponded with a huge increase in microcephaly rate. The scientific community connects the relation between microcephaly and Zika, since they found the virus when genetically analysing the brains of the newborn babies that died due to microcephaly, according to the CDC.
Brazil has also informed of dozens of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a weird immune system disorder that can cause temporary paralysis, whose cause was unknown so far but now we know it is related to the Zika virus.
The scientists were surprised by the speed with which the virus is moving through America. In a study published in Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, the researchers observed that Zika could have extended to Brazil during the 2014 football world cup, since there were outbreaks in some island nations in the Pacific at the same time. According to the CDCs, given that the Aedes mosquitos that spread in the whole world, it is likely that the outbreaks will spread to other countries.
