The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Zika

  • Zika: FG restricts travel to Latin America

    Zika: FG restricts travel to Latin America

    The Federal Government on Friday warned Nigerians against travelling to Latin America nations following the outbreak of Zika virus in the region.

    Pregnant women were particularly asked to steer clear of the region and the restriction subsists until further notice.

    The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, while issuing the travel advice called for closer monitoring and screening of passengers at various ports of entry in the country, especially for those who had visited Latin America recently.

    Adewole directed the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) to include Zika virus diagnosis as part of ongoing effort to manage Lassa fever outbreak in the country.

    He assured Nigerians that there is no single case of Zika virus infection in the country, saying there is no need for Nigerians to panic.

    He stressed that the ministry will continue to monitor the situation and update Nigerians on further development.

  • WHO raises alarm as Zika virus spreads “explosively”

    WHO raises alarm as Zika virus spreads “explosively”

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the Zika virus, linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil, is “spreading explosively” and can infect as many as four million people.

    THE WHO Director-General, Margaret Chan, said this at a meeting on Friday with the agency’s executive board in Geneva, adding that the spread of the mosquito-borne disease had gone from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions.

    She said that to help determine its response, WHO would convene an emergency meeting on Monday, because the level of alarm was extremely high.

    Chan told the Geneva gathering that in 2015, the virus was detected in the Americas, where it was now spreading explosively.

    She stressed that as of today, cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the region.

    She recalled that WHO was criticised in 2015 for reacting too slowly to West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 10,000 people, and it promised to cut its response time.

    “We are not going to wait for the science to tell us there is a link with birth defects.

    “We need to take actions now,” Chan said, referring to the condition called microcephaly in which babies were born with abnormally small heads and brains that have not developed properly.

    Chan promised a quick action from the WHO, stressing that this has become urgent because there is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is like dengue and causes mild fever, rash and red eyes.

    “An estimated 80 per cent of people infected have no symptoms.

    “Much of the effort against the illness focuses on protecting people from mosquitoes and reducing mosquito populations,’’ she said.

    Meanwhile, WHO Assistant Director, Bruce Aylward, said there was no confirmation yet in the area of vaccines.

    He said there were no indications if there had been some work done by some groups looking at the feasibility of a Zika virus vaccine.

    Aylward said it would take six to nine months to confirm whether Zika was the actual cause of the birth defects, or if the two were just associated.

  • WHO predicts up to four million Zika cases

    Three to four million people could be infected with Zika virus in the Americas this year, the World Health Organization has predicted.

    Most will not develop symptoms, but the virus, spread by mosquitoes, has been linked to brain defects in babies, the BBC reports.

    Meanwhile, the United States said it hopes to start vaccine trials in people by the end of the year.

    WHO director general, Dr. Margaret Chan, said Zika had gone “from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions.”

    She has set up a Zika “emergency team” after the “explosive” spread of the virus.

    It will meet on Monday to decide whether Zika should be treated as a global emergency.

    The last time an international emergency was declared was for the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has killed more than 11,000 people.

    Zika was first detected in Uganda in 1947, but has never caused an outbreak on this scale.

    Brazil reported the first cases of Zika in South America in May 2015.

    Most cases result in no symptoms and it is hard to test for, but WHO officials said between 500,000 and 1.5 million people had been infected in the country.

    The virus has since spread to more than 20 countries in the region.

  • Two tropical diseases pose new health threats

    A little-known bacterial disease may be killing as many people worldwide as measles, scientists said on Monday, while a mosquito-borne virus known as Zika is also raising global alarm.

    The spread of Ebola in West Africa last year shows how poorly-understood diseases can emerge and grow rapidly while researchers race to design and conduct the scientific studies needed to combat them.

    Researchers in the journal Nature Microbiology called for the bacterial infection meliodosis, which is resistant to a wide range of antibiotics, to be given a higher priority by international health organizations and policy makers, Reuters reported.

    At the same time, scientists at Britain’s Oxford University warned that a virus known as Zika, which is carried by mosquitoes and has caused a major outbreak in Brazil, has “the potential of rapid spread to new areas.”

    Zika was first detected in Africa in the 1940s and was unknown in the Americas until last year, but has now been confirmed in Brazil, Panama, Venezuela, El Salvador, Mexico, Suriname, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Guatemala and Paraguay, according to public health officials.

    It is carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which thrives in tropical climates and can also carry other diseases such as yellow fever, dengue fever and chikungunya.

    Thousands of people in Brazil have been infected by Zika. While the virus is not thought to kill, health authorities there last year linked it to a surge in babies born with microcephaly, restricted head growth that seriously limits a child’s mental and physical abilities.

    Trudie Lang, professor of Global Health Research at Oxford University, said Zika – for which there are currently no known treatments – was a cause for concern.