This means Zika is now a much larger potential risk than what we’ve envisioned

LIMA, Peru — The world’s attention may be focused on the Zika outbreak in Brazil, but there’s a chance the spread of the disease could be even more intense in neighboring Venezuela.

That is the conclusion of doctors in the crisis-hit South American nation, whose response to the virus has been hampered by a collapsing health system and the government’s failure to release reliable numbers about the spread of the mosquito-borne disease.

Last week, Venezuela’s Health Minister Luisana Melo said the country had 4,700 suspected cases of Zika. 

Doctors in Brazil fear the virus is responsible for a spike in cases of microcephaly, babies born with unusually small heads and potential brain damage. The worst affected state is Pernambuco, in the Brazilian northeast, near Venezuela. Zika has also been associated with the rare and debilitating Guillain-Barre syndrome in adults.

He calculated those numbers by feeding the government’s limited official data and other reports of unexplained fever cases into epidemiological and mathematical models, he said.

comment: This is still not a Pandemic. There are only two countries which have large numbers of cases and very small numbers in the rest of the world. This Spring and Summer as mosquitoes wake up in colder climate countries Zika could set up reservoirs of infection and we may see it spread more in the United States and Europe.

What I am a little concerned about is the lack of tracking of other diseases such as the Flu in the U.S. - MRSA and other recent mutated pathogens. The Zika crisis is flooding the media.

Medclinician

2 Chronicles 33King James Version (KJV)

33 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem:

2 But did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

3 For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.

4 Also he built altars in the house of the Lord, whereof the Lord had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever.

5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.

6 And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom: also he observed times, and used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to anger.

7 And he set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen before all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:

8 Neither will I any more remove the foot of Israel from out of the land which I have appointed for your fathers; so that they will take heed to do all that I have commanded them, according to the whole law and the statutes and the ordinances by the hand of Moses.

9 So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.

10 And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken.

11 Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

12 And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,

13 And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God.