Zika - Page 5

Global health authorities and government officials are mobilizing to battle the fast-spreading Zika virus, sending rapid-response teams to affected regions, issuing travel warnings for pregnant women, accelerating vaccine trials and even deploying mosquito-fighting troops to hard-hit areas in Brazil.

Since October, doctors have discovered over 7,000 Zika cases on Cape Verde, an island located off the coast of Senegal.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has decided not to postpone the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro despite the widespread presence of Zika virus in host nation Brazil.

The government of Venezuela has confirmed three deaths directly related to the Zika pandemic sweeping Latin America, while medical experts throughout the country report an alarming rise in the number of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disease Zika is suspected of triggering in certain patients.

An American researcher, who identified the Zika virus as a potential threat in 2009, tells the journal Wired that it would have been impossible to attain funding to research Zika exclusively five years ago, as few believed it had the potential to cause an outbreak as large as that currently underway in Latin America.

Zika is primarily a mosquito-borne virus that is very difficult to detect in most human carriers, currently impossible to cure, spreading very rapidly, and believed to increase the risk of birth defects when contracted by pregnant women.

An Australian doctor with the Olympic team believes the Rio water poses more of a threat towards the athletes than the Zika virus.

A doctor in Brazil has discovered numerous microcephaly cases that predate the Zika outbreak.

President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff hosted a meeting among leaders of various Brazilian Christian denominations Tuesday, requesting they actively engage their congregation in awareness and prevention methods to combat the ongoing Zika epidemic in the region.

Mosquitoes capable of carrying the Zika virus continue to spread in California.

A nominally Catholic abortion lobby group called Catholics for Choice has appealed to Pope Francis to permit Church members to procure abortions in good conscience as a means of eliminating the possibility of having children with birth defects caused by

The annual security briefing delivered to the Senate Intelligence Committee by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has added the Zika virus to the list of infections diseases threatening the United States, on the same list as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Ebola.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that doctors had confirmed the presence of Zika virus in the tissue of infants who died from microcephaly, a rare birth defect.

Yale University School of Public Health Professor Albert Ko claims the cases of microcephaly in Brazil are just the start of concerns about birth defects linked to the Zika virus.

China has confirmed its first case of Zika, a 34-year-old man who traveled to Venezuela. Authorities are particularly concerned that the man stopped in Hong Kong before reaching his final destination, home to a mosquito species potentially capable of carrying the virus.

The radiation sterilization of male mosquitoes is being studied by an entomologist as a potential biological weapon to combat the mosquito-borne Zika virus outbreak in the Americas.

Local mosquito control departments in the Gulf Coast will be the front lines of the fight against the Zika virus in the United States, reports Wired magazine.

The National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK) might pull out of the Summer Olympics due to the Zika outbreak in Brazil.

The executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) asserts that a lifting of the ban on DDT could prevent the spread of the Zika virus, just as it could have wiped out malaria.

U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo said the Zika outbreak in Brazil could keep her out of the Summer Olympics in August.

The Zika virus has a long history in India, so there is much concern about the current outbreak, even though the region primarily affected is in South America, and Asia has not been affected much yet.

Facing significant shortages of imported insect repellants in light of Latin America’s Zika pandemic, Argentines are turning to an online market selling mosquito-eating frogs and toads to protect their homes from Aedes aegypti, the carrier of Zika, Dengue fever, and Chikungunya.

The Brazilian government made efforts to warn revelers before the annual Carnival celebrations to protect themselves from the Zika virus by wearing long-sleeved clothing and avoiding kissing and sexual contact, particularly pregnant women.

The White House has asked Congress for $1.8 billion in emergency funding to combat the spread of Zika, funding programs to study the virus and control the mosquitoes that spread it, both at home and abroad.

The beltway bastion of mainstream media liberalism, the Washington Post, has teamed up with the abortion industry to beat up the Catholic Church for its opposition to abortion as a means of addressing the Zika virus outbreak in Latin America. Decrying

International Planned Parenthood Federation in the Western Hemisphere region (IPPF/WHR) is seemingly taking advantage of the Zika outbreak in the Americas, the hardest hit region by the mosquito-borne virus, to ask for donations to expand access to abortions and birth control.

Health officials of the United States and United Nations are complaining that Brazil is not providing enough data and fresh samples to help them combat the Zika viral outbreak.

Puerto Rico declared a public health emergency over the Zika virus on Friday afternoon, following the confirmation of 22 cases of the infection, including one pregnant woman, and one man who developed the severe Guillain-Barre syndrome neurological reaction.

The U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) has recommended that any athlete or trainer concerned about the Zika outbreak in Latin America should consider not attending the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

A private clinic in Brazil has recommended pregnant women wear burqas to protect themselves against Zika due to possible connections to the rare birth defect microcephaly.

The UN has demanded Latin American countries give women access to abortions and birth control due to the ongoing Zika virus outbreak in the region.

The Brazilian Conference of Catholic Bishops has rejected the left’s attempt to promote abortion in areas affected by Zika.

Mexican border businessmen fear that the Zika virus could continue to spread in Mexico and end up damaging the already fragile border economy.

The government of Colombia has confirmed 3,100 cases of pregnant women with the Zika virus, but no cases of the birth defect microcephaly.

At Saturday’s Republican presidential primary debate, Dr. Ben Carson asserted he would be open to quarantining individuals returning from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics if they exhibited symptoms of having contracted the Zika virus, calling Latin America’s Zika outbreak “obviously a big deal.”

Brazilian scientists detected live Zika virus in human saliva and urine, which may indicate that a person in contact with these bodily fluids can contract the virus.