The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has added Guyana and several other Caribbean countries to its travel advisory asking pregnant women to avoid visiting because of the presence of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, according to its website.
In Brazil there has been a growing number of cases of women delivering babies with microcephaly – incomplete brain development – believed to be linked to the virus and this has triggered the US CDC travel advisory and international concern.
The initial list contained 14 countries and the CDC today added Barbados, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, Guyana, Cape Verde, and Samoa. The CDC move comes after reports that there had been a positive Zika test here.
The Ministry of Public Health here has said that a number of measures are being taken to address the virus including fogging and the distribution of bed nets impregnated with chemicals which are effective against the mosquito, the Aedes species.
Some countries have been advising women to delay pregnancies as a precaution.
A Reuters news item on the advisory follows:
U.S. adds more countries to Zika travel alert
(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) extended its travel warning to another eight countries or territories that pose a risk of infection with Zika, a mosquito-borne virus spreading through the Caribbean and Latin America.
Friday’s warning adds Barbados, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Cape Verde, Samoa and the island of Saint Martin to a list of 14 countries and territories.
The CDC has cautioned pregnant women not to travel to these areas as Zika has been suspected to lead to birth defects.
The Zika virus is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is also known to carry the dengue, yellow fever and Chikungunya viruses.
Health experts are unsure why the virus – detected in Africa in 1947 but unknown in the Americas until last year – is spreading so rapidly in Brazil and neighboring countries.
There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which causes mild fevers and rashes. An estimated 80 percent of those infected show no symptoms at all.
Researchers in Brazil said on Wednesday they had found new evidence linking the virus to increasing incidence of microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads.
U.S. authorities confirmed on Saturday the birth of a baby with a small head in Hawaii to a mother who had been infected with the Zika virus while visiting Brazil.
The agency issued an advisory last week against travel to Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
