As Zika Virus Approaches Pandemic, World Health Executives Plan Emergency Action
Alarm over the Zika virus http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/2016/webstreaming/eb138/en/ - reached new heights Thursday , as the World Health Organization (WHO) devoted its executive session in Geneva to addressing the growing pandemic. Dr.
Margaret Chan, the Director-General of WHO, said the “heartbreaking”
outbreak had transitioned “from a mild threat to one of alarming
proportions.”
Dr.
Chan also announced a February 1 meeting of the Emergency Committee to
decide whether to declare a public health emergency.
The virus has
reached near pandemic levels since arriving in Brazil in 2015, infecting
1.5 million people in that country. “The level of alarm is extremely high,” said Dr. Chan.
Dr.
Vanessa Van Der Linden, the neuro-pediatrician who first recognized and
alerted authorities over the microcephaly crisis in Brazil, measures
the head of a 2-month-old baby with microcephaly on January 27, 2016 in
Recife, Brazil. The baby's mother was diagnosed with having the Zika
virus during her pregnancy. The https://www.inverse.com/article/9751-zika-mosquitos-spread-virus-connected-to-birth-defects - virus can cause microcephaly ,
or abnormal smallness of the head, in infants whose mothers are
infected by the disease. It has also been linked to Guillain-Barré
syndrome, a disease of the nervous system that eats away at the
insulating material — myelin sheaths — that cover our neurons. A certain
kind of warm-weather mosquito, known for carrying Dengue fever, also
transmits Zika. “We cannot tolerate the prospect of more babies
being born with neurological and other malformations and more people
facing the threat of paralysis,” said Dr. Carissa Etienne, the
regional-director for the WHO Pan American Health Organization. Zika began spreading in a relatively small swath of Africa and Asia over the past few decades. https://www.inverse.com/article/10531-the-zika-virus-can-have-a-gnarly-side-effect-a-nightmarish-paralysis - The virus recently reached the Americas — where natural immunity is less common — and exploded, already reaching near pandemic levels. “This year’s El Nino weather patterns are expected to increase mosquito populations greatly in many areas,” said Dr. Chan. Affected
regions include Brazil, Mexico, Haiti, and early reports indicate it
has jumped to Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. In a sign of the
mounting threat, http://time.com/money/4194764/united-airlines-refund-zika/ - United Airlines recently announced it would offer refunds to anyone planning to travel to affected areas in the Americas. https://www.inverse.com/article/10716-as-zika-virus-approaches-pandemic-world-health-executives-plan-emergency-action
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