The World Health Organisation has
declared the on-going Zika virus epidemic,
a global health emergency.
The WHO director-general, Margaret Chan, who
issued the health alert after a meeting with the
organisations disease control committees in
Geneva on Monday, said it is high time the world
began a united response to fight the virus.
Chan said that experts are worried at the
alarming rate of infection and its deadly
consequences.
By this action from the global body, the WHO
alert puts Zika in the same category of
international concern as Ebola.
Chan said, “I am now declaring that the recent
cluster of Zika virus- related microcephaly and
other neurological abnormalities reported in Latin
America following a similar cluster in French
Polynesia in 2014 constitutes a public health
emergency of international concern.She said
countries priorities were to protect pregnant
women and their babies from harm and to
control the mosquitoes that are spreading the
virus.
The WHO warned that Zika is likely to spread
explosively across nearly all of the Americas with
more than 20 countries, including Brazil reporting
new cases daily.
Chan added, “Currently, there is no vaccine or
medication to stop Zika.The only way to avoid
catching it is to avoid getting bitten by the
Aedes mosquitoes that transmit the infection.”
There have been around 4,000 reported cases of
microcephaly – babies born with small brains –
in Brazil alone since October.
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