The World Health Organization
announced earlier today that Zika is no longer considered a global health
emergency—it is now a chronic threat. And as the chairman of the emergency
committee on Zika virus and microcephaly, Dr. David Heymann, stated, this announcement
does “not [down regulate] the importance of Zika. By placing this as a
long-term program of work, we are saying Zika is here to stay.”
Zika was placed as a global health
emergency earlier this year because there were high amounts of clusterings of
babies with microcephaly in certain areas and they hoped that by placing the
international title more research would be conducted in hopes of finding a
solution for the teratogenic disease. As a result, in April it was confirmed
that Zika causes microcephaly in babies and Guillain-Barré Syndrome in adults
and efforts to educate and prevent pregnant mothers were put in place.
The rate of Zika infections has
since decreased, but mostly because those areas with high rates of Zika are no
longer in mosquito season. Therefore, WHO suggests placing efforts into
research now to develop a vaccine and prevent Zika in the upcoming season. The
WHO does not want people to believe that Zika is no longer an issue because all
the risks of the mosquito are still present and no effective vaccine is
available yet. The CDC, as a result of this announcement, also announced today that
pregnant women should still avoid traveling to areas with “local transmission
of Zika because of the devastating complications that can occur in fetuses that
become infected during pregnancy.” It will be interesting to see how research
efforts and human perception of the threat from Zika change because of this
announcement. Hopefully research efforts do not dwindle and a cure for Zika is
found within the next year, although vaccine development usually does take a
lot longer.
Read articles here: http://pix11.com/2016/11/18/zika-virus-no-longer-global-public-health-emergency-who-says/;
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/11/who-zika-is-no-longer-an-emergency-its-now-a-chronic-threat/
-Jeanette Rios
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