which can cause a polio-like paralysis for two to three years.

For those of you with long memories.

She recently posted a TBT pic on her FB page of herself sitting in her wheelchair and holding her daughter.

know how it was acquired or when it began? My cousin has later life fibromyalgia and is alright with meds.

The daughter, now in high school, looked to be just past toddler stage in the pic.

or at worse, a mild cold.

It's really only bad for pregnant women (for their babies).

infection in Virginia, and there have been more than 40 cases reported so far in 12 US states and Washington, DC. That's apart from Latin America of course. So glad the student is ok.

It`s awful. Glad the student mentioned above is expected to recover.

travel all across the globe.

- "ZIKE VIRUS A GLOBAL HEALTH EMERGENCY, W.H.O. SAYS", NYT, Feb. 1, 2016.-
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/health/zika-virus-world-health-organization.html?_r=1

The World Health Organization declared the Zika virus and its suspected link to birth defects an international public health emergency on Monday, a rare move that signals the seriousness of the outbreak and gives countries new tools to fight it.
An outbreak of the Zika virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, was detected in Brazil in May and has since moved into more than 20 countries in Latin America, including two new ones announced Monday: Costa Rica and Jamaica.

The main worry is over the virus’s possible link to microcephaly, a condition that causes babies to be born with unusually small heads and, in the vast majority of cases, damaged brains. Reported cases of microcephaly are rising sharply in Brazil, ground zero for the disease, though researchers have yet to establish that Zika causes the condition.
Australia to Begin Monitoring for Zika Virus FEB. 1, 2016, Tears and Bewilderment in Brazilian City Facing Zika Crisis JAN. 29, 2016

*VIDEO, At a news conference in Geneva, Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the W.H.O, acknowledged that the understanding of the connection between the Zika virus and microcephaly was hazy and said that the uncertainty placed “a heavy burden” on pregnant women and their families throughout the Americas. She said the emergency designation would allow the health agency to coordinate the many efforts to get desperately needed answers. Officials said research on the effects of Zika in pregnant women was underway in at least three countries: Brazil, Colombia and El Salvador.

The evidence is growing and it’s getting strong,” Dr. Chan said. “So I accepted, even on microcephaly alone, that it is sufficient to call an emergency. We need a coordinated international response.”
But the agency stopped short of advising pregnant women not to travel to the affected region, a precaution that American health officials began recommending last month. Some global health experts contended the W.H.O.’s decision was more about politics than medicine. Brazil is preparing to host the Olympics this summer, and any ban on travel, even just for pregnant women, would deliver a serious blow to the Brazilian government.

“I think there was a political overtone,” said Lawrence O. Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. “If it were my daughter and she was pregnant or thinking of getting pregnant, I would absolutely warn her off of going to a Zika-affected country, and the W.H.O. should have said that."



The current outbreak of Zika has taken the world by surprise. The virus was first identified in 1947 in Uganda, and for years lived mostly in monkeys. But last May in Brazil, cases began increasing drastically. The W.H.O. has estimated that four million people could be infected by the end of the year. The rapid spread is because people in the Americas have not developed immunity, public health experts say.
->Health officials in the United States, however, say the risk of a major homegrown outbreak is low because mosquito control programs are systematic and effective. They cite a related virus, dengue, which is also transmitted by mosquitoes but has not spread very much since first appearing locally a few years ago.

An emergency designation from the W.H.O. can prompt action and funding from governments and nonprofits around the world. It elevates the agency to the position of global coordinator and gives its decisions the force of international law. It could also help standardize surveillance of new cases across countries — something that Dr. David L. Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who chaired the emergency committee, said was critical to getting control over the virus. Continued..

Much more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/health/zika-virus-world-health-organization.html?_r=1