Confirmed: 4 Canadians Have Zika

[vibranium]

Zika virus infections have recently been confirmed among four Canadians who have travelled to areas most affected by the virus, the Public Health Agency of Canada says.

 

Two cases in British Columbia, one in Alberta and one in Quebec all resulted from travel to areas where the virus is actively circulating, such as South and Central America, and the Caribbean, Dr. Gregory Taylor, Canada's chief public health officer, said Friday.

 

Dr. Horacio Arruda, Quebec's director of public health, said a woman was infected while travelling to one of the affected areas. She was not pregnant, but showed symptoms and is fine now.

 

Taylor told a briefing in Ottawa that a consortium of Canadian and U.S. scientists, including Gary Kobinger from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, is working on a potential vaccine.

 

Taylor said Kobinger will do the vaccine work at Laval University, but it's unclear how the Public Health Agency may be involved in its development.

 

Developing a vaccine is a priority, Taylor said, because of the association between viral infections in pregnancy and a birth defect called microcephaly -- abnormally small heads -- a rare neurological condition that is usually the result of abnormal brain development.

 

 

ARTICLE SOURCE

[dMog]

some scary stuff out there

 

off to an area where this is as well as malaria and various other stuff   among them  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/05/chikungunya-the-mosquito-borne-virus-that-contorts-your-limbs.html

 

[pc71520]

There could be 3-4 million Zika infections in the Americas over the next year.