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World Health Organization Calls Emergency Meeting as Outbreak of Zika Virus Spreads

WHO will determine whether the explosive spread of the virus constitutes "a public health emergency of international concern.” It will also examine an apparent link between the virus and cases of babies being born with microcephaly.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons

The World Health Organization will hold an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss the current Zika outbreak and determine whether the spread of the virus constitutes "a public health emergency of international concern."

"Last year, the virus was detected in the Americas, where it is now spreading explosively," remarked WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan in a speech on Thursday."As of today, cases have been reported in 23 countries and territories in the region.The level of alarm is extremely high."

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The meeting's agenda also includes an examination of an apparent link between the virus and cases of babies being born with microcephaly, a birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads. Babies born with microcephaly can suffer physical and developmental problems, and in some cases, the deformity can cause babies to be stillborn.

Zika can also affect children and adults and has also been potentially linked to Guillain-Barré syndrome, an disorder in which the immune system attacks healthy nerve cells, causing weakness and leading eventually to muscular paralysis.

"A causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations and neurological syndromes has not yet been established," Chan said, "but is strongly suspected."

According to WHO experts, the mosquito-borne virus is spreading fast throughout the Americas, and could affect up to 4 million people by next year.

Related: The Zika Virus Is Spreading Through the Americas Very Quickly

In Brazil, which has been hard hit by Zika infection and which has seen a dramatic spike in cases of microcephaly, the government has announced that it would mobilize 220,000 troops in a door-to-door operation to help fight the virus. More than 3,800 babies have been born with microcephaly in Brazil over the last nine months, compared to 150 in all of 2014.

The outbreak has hit the country at a time when it is preparing for fast-approaching carnival celebrations as well as anticipating millions of visitors for this year's Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

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Brazil is at the heart of an outbreak that is rapidly spreading through the Americas. Authorities in five countries in the region — El Salvador, Colombia, Honduras, Jamaica, and Ecuador — have urged women to put off having children.

The virus is transmitted by the Aedes genus of mosquito, which is also a vector for diseases like dengue and chikungunya.

US President Barack Obama met Tuesday with senior health and security advisors to discuss the spread of the virus as well as steps being taken to protect the American public — including the need to develop testing and vaccines.

Several cases of the virus have also appeared in Europe. Officials fear that the virus could spread to mosquitoes in southern Europe as temperatures rise in the spring.

French Health Minister Marisol Touraine issued a warning on Thursday urging pregnant women to avoid traveling to Zika-hit regions, including overseas French territories like Guyana and Martinique.

Speaking Thursday to French radio station France Info, Touraine described the outbreak as "serious" and said that she was "concerned" over the rise of cases.

German, British, and Portuguese authorities have also issued warnings about the outbreak. Portugal's Directorate-General of Health warned tourists traveling to Zika-hit countries to "protect themselves from mosquitoes by wearing appropriate clothing and repellents, to stick to air-conditioned spaces and follow the recommendations of local authorities."

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Dr. Jose Muñoz, a tropical disease specialist at the Clinical Hospital in Barcelona and a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said there was "strong suspicion" among the medical profession that the Zika virus causes infant microcephaly.

"The causal link has not yet been proven," he said, "but the initial findings should be published in the next few weeks, or at most, in a few months."

"The Zika virus is similar to dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever," explained Muñoz.

Patients complain of high fevers, rashes, and conjunctivitis. Some 70 to 80 percent of those infected do not develop any clear symptoms, however, which makes the disease hard to diagnose.

"In Europe, the virus could be transmitted by the Aedes Albopictus mosquito — also known as the tiger mosquito," said Muñoz. Tiger mosquitoes are present in the Mediterranean, reappearing each spring with warmer temperatures. "But with this very strange winter and the mild temperatures we've had, there's a chance the mosquito will show up in [new] places."

While all the cases reported in Europe are for now "imported" cases involving people who became contaminated after traveling to infected areas, the return of the tiger mosquito could cause the virus to spread across the Atlantic.

The virus was first discovered in 1947 in a Ugandan forest. According to an article recently published by Lancaster University researchers, the virus spread to Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan in the late 1970s. It reached Micronesia in the Pacific by 2007 before appearing in Polynesia in 2013 and reaching Brazil last year.

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Since the start of the outbreak in May 2015, EU health agencies have taken the threat of Zika very seriously. In August, French authorities sprayed insecticide in the Parc Floral, the largest botanical garden in Paris, after tiger mosquitoes were spotted there.

Despite acknowledging that the spread of the virus in Europe is "highly likely," Muñoz noted that the outbreak on the continent could turn out to be less severe than the epidemic spreading throughout Latin America.

"We base our predictions on two parameters: the number of imported cases and the results from our mosquito monitoring programs," he explained. In Spain, residents can flag the presence of tiger mosquitoes using an app called Atrapa el Tigre (Catch the Tiger).

Other factors could also limit the spread of the virus in Europe.

"We don't yet know if the tiger mosquito we have here is capable of transmitting the virus in the same way as mosquitoes in Latin America," said Muñoz.

Follow Pierre-Louis Caron on Twitter:@pierrelouis_c

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Photo via Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Wikimedia Commons

This story originally appeared in VICE News' French edition