Confirmed Zika Cases In Mexico Increase To 151

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It would be necessary to develop a vaccine and efficient diagnosis

Urged to change strategy against zika for its possible relationship with microcephaly

 

César Arellano García

 

Newspaper La Jornada 
Tuesday March 15, 2016, p. 35

The expansion of the Zika virus in the Americas, and its association with microcephaly in infants and Guillain-Barre syndrome, involves great challenges in public health on a global scale, as demonstrated a causal relationship would be necessary for the authorities and health agencies adopt a new strategy, different from the one used against dengue, which is also transmitted by mosquitoes of the genus Aedes aegypti .

Rosa Maria del Angel Nunez, head of the department of infectómica and molecular pathogenesis of CINVESTAV (Cinvestav) said that if the association, which has been raised in several recent studies is not checked, could talk zika as a mild febrile illness that causes symptoms only in one of every four people infected .

During the colloquium Truths, lies and unknowns about the zika, made in the context of the 55th anniversary of the institution, the researcher noted that the virus is able to cross the placenta, reach the nervous system and cause a disease that can have all the pictures clinical, since the death of the newborn to mental or motor retardation.

It is very important to know, because if it is found (the association) would need to develop a vaccine (which will take many years), as well as efficient methods to make key diagnostic monitoring of women who were exposed to the virus.

 

It is also necessary, he said, to develop diagnostic methods in the convalescent phase, control the transmitting mosquitoes, and to determine if there reservoirs zika, for even when the human population is protected or quantity of these insects is reduced, it is the virus may arise again.

He mentioned that an indication that the virus could be related to microcephaly in newborns is that zika seems to infections that generate encephalitis, but this will be known within a few months, new studies.

He warned that zika transmission during the acute phase of infection through blood transfusions is absolutely feasible, as with dengue.

 

Ssa confirmed 151 cases

In the weekly report on transmission of the virus, the Health Ministry (SSA) yesterday confirmed 151 cases, mostly in Oaxaca and Chiapas. Among them are 25 pregnant women (19 in Chiapas, five in Oaxaca and Veracruz).

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2016/03/15/sociedad/035n2soc

 

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