Concerns over Zika mount as US, 26 nations record outbreak

Some nations such as Chile have gone on a health ministry initiated awareness drive. Honduras and Nicaragua reported the first cases of Zika in pregnant women, while El Salvador went so far as to advise its women to avoid getting pregnant until 2018. 

The UK government yesterday said planes arriving from countries affected by the Zika virus should be sprayed inside with insecticide. The disclosure of the blood transfusion cases in the industrial city of Campinas near Sao Paulo came two days after Texas authorities said a person became infected through sex. 

Concern over the virus is mounting as Brazil prepares to host the Olympic Games in August, with tens of thousands of athletes and tourists anticipated. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which has caused outbreaks in at least 26 countries in the Americas. Brazil researchers hope to develop a treatment that could be tested in humans in a year. 

Dr. Marcelo Addas Carvalho, director of the blood center at the University of Campinas, said “Governments and society in general should focus on eliminating the mosquito, which is the main form of transmission,” Carvalho added. 

Brazil is investigating more than 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly, a condition in which infants are born with abnormally small heads and can suffer developmental problems, that may be linked to Zika. One major hurdle is accurate diagnosis of a virus that still confounds blood tests. 

Genetic tests and clinical symptoms have enabled scientists to partially track Zika, and Brazil guesses up to 1.5 million people have been infected in the country. But a true measure of the outbreak and its implications is impossible until doctors can quickly and reliably identify Zika through serology, a common test of blood contents that measures antibodies triggered in the immune system by a given infection. 

Laboratories in Brazil, the United States and elsewhere are rushing to develop serology tests that can accurately identify Zika antibodies while ignoring those triggered by other related viruses with similar structures. For years, the similarities have confused serology research.