Trinidad declares health emergency over Zika virus

From St Lucia News online

CARIBBEAN360 – No cases of the Zika virus have surfaced in Trinidad and Tobago, but Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh has declared a national public health emergency as a result of the threat of the virus, even as the World Health Organization (WHO) is yet to determine whether to declare an international emergency. [SEE UPDATE]

He said that stance was being taken because of the spread of the virus across more than 20 countries in the Americas. With the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is responsible for spreading Zika, in the twin-island republic, the minister added, its arrival was inevitable.

Deyalsingh made the announcement on Friday, a day after the WHO said its chief Margaret Chan would convene a meeting of the organization’s International Health Regulations Emergency Committee tomorrow to determine whether the Zika outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern.

“Be that as it may I, as Minister of Health, am declaring a national public health emergency…I have already set up a Rapid Response Unit to treat with Zika and to treat with the Aedes aegypti mosquito,” Deyalsingh said at a media conference on Friday.

Under the initiative, the Ministries of Local Government and National Security and other State agencies that have a stake in environmental concerns will collaborate to increase fogging, spraying and dissemination of information to the public. Soldiers will assist in this regard.

IMAGE: The Aedes aegypti mosquito.

For more on this story go to: http://www.stlucianewsonline.com/caribbean-trinidad-declares-health-emergency-over-zika-virus/#sthash.nLvZbBjl.dpuf

UPDATE:  Zika virus sparks ‘public health emergency’

By Michael Pearson, From CNN

(CNN)The World Health Organization declared a “public health emergency of international concern” Monday over the Zika virus and the health problems that doctors fear it is causing.

The agency said the emergency is warranted because of how fast the mosquito-borne virus is spreading and its suspected link to an alarming spike in babies born with abnormally small heads — a condition called microcephaly — in Brazil and French Polynesia.

Reports of a serious neurological condition, called Guillame-Barre Syndrome, that can lead to paralysis, have also risen in areas where the virus has been reported. Health officials have specifically seen clusters of this in El Salvador, Brazil and French Polynesia, according to WHO’s Dr. Bruce Aylward.

The conditions have not yet been conclusively linked to the virus.

“The experts agreed that a causal relationship between Zika infection during pregnancy and microcephaly is strongly suspected, though not yet scientifically proven,” Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general said.

But the large area potentially affected by the virus, the lack of vaccines and reliable diagnostic tests, and lack of population immunity in the affected countries contributed to the need for the declaration, according to the WHO.

Chan described Zika as an “extraordinary event” after the first meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee in Geneva, Switzerland.

“Members of the committee admit that the situation meets the conditions for a public health emergency of international concern,” she said. “I have accepted this advice. I am now declaring that the recent cluster of microcephaly and other neurological abnormalities reported in Latin America following a similar cluster in French Polynesia in 2014 constitutes a public health emergency of international concern.”

The declaration is intended to facilitate international coordination of tracking, research and response to the virus and its effects.

Aylward was clear the Zika virus itself is, “not a clinically serious infection,” but that the associated concerns prompted the move.

Last week, the agency said the virus was “spreading explosively” in the Americas, with as many as 3 million to 4 million infections possible over 12 months.

On Monday, the Pan American Health Organization added Costa Rica and Jamaica to the list of nations in the Americas where Zika virus is currently circulating. There are 28 nations currently on the list and health officials say they are monitoring the situation carefully and updating the list as necessary.

Zika at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil
In Brazil, officials insisted on Monday that the Zika virus is only a risk to pregnant women and should not deter tourists from attending the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

“If someone is bitten by a mosquito carrying the Zika virus, the damage is more dramatic if we are talking about a pregnant woman. If I am a man or woman, unless I’m pregnant, I would develop the antibodies necessary to fight virus in 3 or 4 days,” said Jacques Wagner, chief of staff to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, following an emergency meeting about Zika on Monday with the President and 31 cabinet ministers.

“Unless we are talking about a pregnant woman, there is zero risk — it’s zero in the sense of something major happening,” said Wagner in response to reporter questions about how the virus might impact attendance at the Olympics being hosted by Brazil in six months’ time.

CNN’s Debra Goldschmidt and Flora Charner contributed to this report.

For more on this story go to: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/01/health/zika-virus-public-health-emergency/

Related Story:

Zika’s local bite depends on mosquitoes

By Jena Sauber From St. Joseph News-Press 2 hrs ago 0

All eyes are on mosquitos to see if Zika spreads

The local impact of the Zika virus will likely depend on whether or not it spreads to a mosquito commonly found across much of the nation, according to a local infectious disease specialist.

“Zika virus is transmitted by a mosquito, something called the Aedes aegypti mosquito,” said Dr. Scott Folk, medical director of adult infectious diseases at Mosaic Life Care. “The concern is whether the Zika virus will also adapt to transmission by another type of mosquito, the Asian tiger mosquito, known as Aedes albopictus. The Aedes albopictus mosquito is found in at least 32 states in the U.S. That’s a concern.”

The virus, which was first detected in 1947, causes mild fever, muscle aches, conjunctivitis and headache in about 20 to 25 percent of people who contract it. It has also been linked to thousands of infants born with underdeveloped brains, although “those details remain to be worked out,” Folk said.

Originally confined the parts of Africa, southeastern Asia and the Pacific Islands, the virus has spread to Central and South America and the Caribbean Islands. The first case in the western hemisphere was reported in Brazil in May 2015 and the World Health Organization estimated that between 3 million and 4 million cases will be reported, although no time frame was given.

Currently, there have been no reports of transmission in the United States, but it has been reported that a woman in Hawaii gave birth to a baby with brain damage after being infected in Brazil.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito, also called the yellow fever mosquito, can transmit the Zika virus as well as the dengue and chikungunya viruses and is found in the southeastern part of the United States, parts of South America and areas of Africa. If the virus adapts to the Asian tiger mosquito, the threat could spread to as many as 32 states including Missouri, Folk said.

In the past, the St. Joseph Health Department has monitored the local mosquito population when the West Nile Virus was a prominent threat, said Stephanie Malita with the St. Joseph Health Department. At the time, environmentalists trapped mosquitoes and sent them for testing to see if they carried the virus.

“We don’t do that anymore because West Nile isn’t a threat like it used to be, but we will see, because of the Zika virus, if we will see an uptick in monitoring again,” she said.

Locally, mosquitoes can appear in the spring “anytime it starts to get warm,” said Thomas Beavers, environmental public health specialist with the St. Joseph Health Department.

“Water is what really attracts them in backyards or houses,” Beavers said. “Reducing the standing water in places is important. It’s not just bird baths. It’s any place that water gathers and is stagnant. It becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes.”

He recommends people eliminate standing water in tires, flower pots, bird baths and other areas to help control the mosquito population. The CDC recommends people use a bug repellent that is 50 percent DEET to repel mosquitoes and other insects when outside.

For now, people should be aware of travel risks, Folk said. There is currently no vaccine or treatment for the Zika virus, which is not typically considered fatal.

“I think that the biggest thing that we can do now is think about travel plans to either the southeastern U.S. or the Caribbean within the next several months,” he said. “As it gets warmer, we are going to have to think harder and harder about that and watch the news to see whether there is spread of Zika virus into these other types of mosquitoes. That would involve a much larger geographic area in the U.S.”

IMAGE: Associated Press
This 2006 photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a female Aedes aegypti mosquito in the process of acquiring a blood meal from a human host. On Friday, Jan. 15, 2016, U.S. health officials are telling pregnant women to avoid travel to Latin America and Caribbean countries with outbreaks of a tropical illness linked to birth defects. The Zika virus is spread through mosquito bites from Aedes aegypti and causes only a mild illness in most people.

For more on this story go to:  http://www.newspressnow.com/news/local_news/heartland_and_mosaic/article_7e5ea6e5-616b-5d90-ae0b-bddd6fa59a04.html