GEOLOGICAL UPHEAVALS: "We Don't Know Why The Water Is Rising" - Scientists Baffled By Relentless Rise Of Two Caribbean Lakes That Are Swallowing Up Communities In Haiti And The Dominican Republic?!

The Haitian village of Lunettes appears to float in Lake Azuéi, also known as Étang Saumâtre. The lake's water level has risen so much
that it has swamped thousands of acres. © Alessandro Grassani

March 4, 2016 - CARIBBEAN - In Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the lakes are flooding farmland, swallowing communities and leading to deforestation.

On a recent calm day, the surface of Lake Azuéi has no waves, not even any ripples. Pillars of pastel-colored concrete break the still surface, the tops of what once were houses. They are all that's visible of the community that once thrived here.

Alberto Pierre, a skinny, wide-eyed 25-year-old, said the submerged village where he grew up wasn't even near the lake. "The water used to be many kilometers from here."

Lake Azuéi, the largest lake in Haiti, lies about 18 miles east of Port-au-Prince, the capital, nestled along the border with the Dominican Republic. Also known as Étang Saumâtre, the lake rose so much between 2004 and 2009 that it engulfed dozens of square miles.

"At first we put rocks so it wouldn't come into our houses," Pierre says. "But then the water just overran the rocks." Families in the village of Letant began abandoning their houses, building huts on higher ground using wood, tarps, whatever they could find. By 2012, all 83 houses had been vacated.

"We don't know why the water is rising," he says.

In fact, nobody does. There seems to be no logic to the lake's rise. Experts from the United Nations, a French engineering firm, a Dominican Republic university, a New York City college and many others have looked for clues to explain the rise of Lake Azuéi and neighboring Lake Enriquillo, just across the border in the Dominican Republic. But few of the theories seem to hold water. Some now hypothesize the phenomenon is related to climate change, but the evidence is counterintuitive: Unlike ocean levels, which rise with climate change, lakes tend to shrink.

Two boys row past the remains of houses that lined a street in Lunettes. About a hundred families once lived in the village, which was also ruined in 2006 by a cyclone.© Alessandro Grassani

For the estimated 400,000 people living in the watershed of the two lakes, the fallout has been severe. Lake Enriquillo rose an incredible 37 feet in less than 10 years, doubling in size and swallowing at least 40,000 acres of farmland.

Most of those who lost their land are poor farmers.

Displaced from their farmland, some are turning to a nefarious occupation: charcoal. Illegal loggers are cutting down trees in the Dominican Republic to produce 50,000 tons of charcoal annually, which they sell in Haiti. The U.N. estimates it's a $15 million a year business. They transport it under the cover of darkness on small boats across Lake Azuéi, which has risen high enough to straddle the border.

Meanwhile, the water is destroying a fragile ecosystem. Cao Cao birds (Hispaniolan Palm Crow, or Corvus palmarum) and other bird species lost their habitat as trees where they once nested died, their roots drowned by the water. Endangered Hispaniola ground iguanas (Cyclura ricordi) and rhinoceros iguanas (Cyclura cornuta) were forced to flee the protected island in the center of Lake Enriquillo for higher ground above the shoreline where they compete with humans and other wildlife.

"The crocodiles can't lay their eggs there anymore, so they climb higher, onto the rocky hillsides," explains Adifer Miguel Medina Terreras, 23, who works with conservationists at the national park that encompasses the lake, offering boat rides to the island for tourists eager to see iguanas and crocodiles. "But there the eggs break. Cats, mules eat or trample the eggs." At the turn of the century, Terreras says, you could ride a motorcycle to the island during dry season—the water was that low. Back then, he says, "everyone thought the lake was going to disappear."

The waters' rise is also hurting the economy of both nations. Stuck together on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, trade between the countries is a billon dollar a year business. The main thoroughfare is a low-lying highway that passes next to the lakes.

When Antonio Perera arrived in Haiti in 2008 with the U.N. Environmental Program, he would drive this highway between the countries nearly every weekend. "The first time I crossed was a nightmare," he recalls. "The road was under the water, 20 or 30 centimeters below. You have to look not to lose the water or else you will fall into the lake." On one trip an SUV in front of him toppled in.

Rising Lakes

Since 2004, two lakes on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean have been growing. Some scientists attribute the growth to climate change; however, others feel the Yaque
del Sur River is to blame. The government plans to dam the river to control flooding of agricultural canals, which it claims are channeling water to the lakes. 
© ANDREW UMENTUM, NG STAFF SOURCES: SISTEMA DE INFORMACIÓN GEOGRÁFICA AND
INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE RECURSOS HIDRÁULICOS, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC; USGS

Over the years, the water flooded customs and immigration buildings at border checkpoints, including one that was submerged two years after it was built. "I remember one building, it was a two-story house—it became a one-story house," he says.

Often, the water would flood the twice-weekly market at the border crossing, forcing hundreds of vendors to carry the food, clothes and other items they sold through a narrow, overcrowded strip of land. Perera says that on several occasions, the U.N. peacekeeping operation in Haiti piled gravel on top of the road to raise it above the water level, only to see it disappear underwater once again.

In 2008 Perera dispatched a team to survey Haitians affected by Lake Azuéi and to review existing research into its causes. "I remember the estimation of the land that was flooded in Azuéi was around 15,000 hectares [about 6,000 acres] of agricultural land. That's a lot in Haiti," Perera says. "This is a phenomenon that cannot be stopped."

He says Haitian farmers "were in desperation." "They had to go to other places they could cultivate. So you can imagine, they went to private land," he adds, explaining that spurred conflict between farmers and landowners.

Michael Piasecki, professor for water resources engineering at the City College of New York who has done research in both countries on the island, says, "On the Dominican side, people are a lot more vocal, a lot more demanding and willing to go out on the street and protest—at least to be loud enough for the government to do something." But in Haiti, he says, "There's a lot more resignation. We got the impression that the Haitian government isn't doing anything, literally, for the people, other than trying to keep that road above water level so that trade can continue."

Since Lake Azuéi flooded her home, Ata Pierre, 40, has lived with her daughter Jennifer in a home built by the charity Love a Child. Her husband died years ago,
and she struggles to pay Jennifer’s school fees.  © Jacob Kushner

In Haiti there has been "no aid for people being displaced, no idea of compensating them, of moving villages." The only relief has come from a Florida-based Christian charity called Love a Child, which gave homes to some of the Haitian families whose houses were lost to Lake Azuéi. Meanwhile, in the Dominican Republic, an entire town was built from scratch to house residents in danger.

Retreating to Higher Ground

An hour's drive east into the Dominican Republic, a hillside with hundreds of identical concrete-block houses painted in bright pastel colors overlooks the dark waters of Lake Enriquillo. This is the new Boca de Cachón, a $24 million community built by the government to house people on the verge of losing their homes to the lake.

One of them is Emilio Perez Nova, 48. Sitting on a plastic chair in front of the small army office he oversees, Perez finds the lake's rise difficult to fathom.

"You have to understand—when I was growing up, Boca de Cachón was not a lakeside town. The lake was a kilometer away!" Perez says.

He laments how he was forced to sell his cattle when water flooded the land they grazed. Relocated into a pop-up suburban community with no land to his name, Perez says he and hundreds of others here are struggling to earn a living.

Children stand on the shore of Lake Azuéi near a submerged hotel in Thomazeau, Haiti, near the border with the Dominican Republic. The lake now straddles
the border between the two countries.   © Dieu Nalio Chery, Associated Press

"You can move to a new place, but life is not the same," Perez says, noting that many who moved used to have at least an acre or more to farm. "Imagine—you have seven, eight, nine tareas of land. And now you have nothing?"

The road between the new Boca de Cachón and the old one passes through a forest of dead trees. On a cloudy day, their tangled branches look gray and dark, giving one the eerie feeling of walking through a bombed-out no man's land. For years, a maze of hand-made fences demarked each family's property. Now all that's left are the tips of wooden fence posts poking up through the water.

Griselda Cuevas is 44, but her wrinkled skin makes her seem much older. Cuevas is one of only seven or so families, out more than 500, who didn't move. She grew up farming maize, rice, and beans. Now, instead of growing them, she buys those crops from a nearby market and resells them.

There aren't many buyers. What just five years ago was a poor but bustling community is now a mostly uninhabited field of rubble with about a dozen houses. As a condition for accepting the new houses, the government destroyed the old ones.

Her husband, Martin Cuevas, 60, worries that the water might soon flood the house. "If you put a stick in the ground," he says, "water shoots out."

Turning to Charcoal to Make Ends Meet

At the center of the town of Duvergé on Lake Enriquillo's southern side is a park with a giant statue of an iguana. The small metal fence that surrounds the fake animal seems like a joke—until you look a bit closer and notice that the fence is actually there to pen in the dozens of very real iguanas crawling around the statue and living underneath it.

The iguana pen is a symbol of the pride the town's residents take in their wildlife. But now some of these residents say they have no choice but to destroy their precious ecosystem: Many looked to higher ground to make a living—to land that is unsuitable for farming but perfect for the illegal production of charcoal.

On an overcast morning in December, a small clearing in the shrubbery above Lake Enriquillo is scorched black—soot from a charcoal oven that once burned there. A few yards away, smoke billows out of tiny holes in a large mound of dirt—an active charcoal furnace. It smells of sharp, smoldering spices.

Fishermen row near the former migration and customs offices in Jimani, Dominican Republic, on the border with Haiti. Lake Azuéi has repeatedly
swamped the main thoroughfare between the countries. © Orlando Barra, EPA

The perpetrator is probably someone like Demetrio, a round-faced Dominican who declined to provide his full name out of fear of prosecution. A farmer by trade, Demetrio remembers the wet morning in 2007 that found him scrambling to recover his employer's crops as they became engulfed by the lake's rise.

"We had to go carry out the sacks of juandules [lentils] with water up to our knees—rapido," he says. "The lake killed all the mango trees—they all died. Sugarcane too."

In the weeks that followed, "we were hungry," he says. "It was a big crisis. So we dedicated ourselves to charcoal. We had to live."

Demetrio knows that cutting down trees to make charcoal is bad for the environment. But he says there's little alternative. "We make charcoal only because we don't have any other way to live." Demetrio is one of 28 farmers on the lake's southern edge who recently found work planting and harvesting molondrones (okra) at a local cooperative, allowing them to leave the charcoal business, at least for now. "But if we lost our job today, you'd see all of us tomorrow out there making charcoal again."

Searching for an Explanation

Lake Enriquillo and Lake Azuéi have always been anomalies. For starters, their water is not fresh, but saline, even though they have no known connection to the ocean. Lake Enriquillo is the largest lake in the Caribbean, and it is also region's lowest point: in 2013 its surface was 112 feet below sea level.

"The topography is unfortunate," explains Piasecki. "Both lakes are flanked on the north and the southern side by steep mountains. It's like a bathtub."

In a tiny, windowless office in Santo Domingo, Yolanda León sits behind a desk piled high with books and reports. León is a professor at the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo and for years has been the leading researcher studying the lakes.

"Here it was chaos," León recalls of the many attempts to explain the lakes' dramatic rise. "Everybody had a hypothesis, and there was no data behind it."

One Dominican professor has been working to show that the 2010 earthquake had something to do with it, hypothesizing that it disrupted the underground aquifers. But that wouldn't explain why the water started rising in 2004.

Demetrio, who declined to provide his last name, began illegally making charcoal when Lake Enriquillo flooded his farmland. He knows it's bad
for the environment, he says, but there are few alternatives.    © Jacob Kushner

Another Dominican professor hypothesizes that erosion from deforestation has caused mud to pile up on the bottom of the lake, displacing the water to higher levels. But León finds that hard to believe because there's little topsoil on these mountains to begin with.

She says locals tend to blame the rise on drainage from the vast web of canals that flush the land with freshwater. But that too seems implausible. "We visit a lot of these canals and they don't really reach the lake. The water is consumed by crops," explains León.

Complicating matters is the possibility that the two lakes are connected by an underground waterway. If true, Lake Azuéi, with its higher elevation, may be slowly draining into Lake Enriquillo. "But we can only speculate about this because we don't know what the water table actually looks like," says Piasecki. Absent funding that would allow scientists to drill the 40 to 50 boreholes he says would be necessary to find out if it's true, the subterranean river mystery will remain just that.

For its part, the Dominican government asserts that the crux of the problem is that too much water is reaching the lake from the Rio Yaque del Sur, the nation's second-longest river. But the Yaque doesn't feed directly into the lake. Instead, officials suggest that during times of heavy rainfall, such as tropical storms and hurricanes, the river unleashes high amounts of water into a small lagoon located about 15 miles southeast of Lake Enriquillo, and that from there water trickles down freshwater canals into the lake.

If true, the solution would be a simple matter of engineering: the river must be dammed. And that's precisely what the Dominican government is doing. In 2012, officials contracted to build a $401 million, 7.8 megawatt dam on the Yaque at Monte Grande. The reservoir will displace three communities. Luis Cuevas, a Dominican official working on the project, did not respond to requests for comment.

"Many people think that dam will solve the problem," says León. But she says there's no indication that more water has flowed down the Yaque recently than in years past, and no evidence that damming it will solve the problem of the lake.

To León, the most likely culprit is climate change.

"With climate change, the sea has risen in temperature. This creates more clouds," explains León. When clouds pass over the mountains that surround the lakes, they drop their load as rain. But León admits that because there haven't been weather stations to monitor rainfall, "we don't know for certain."

Fishermen in Lake Enriquillo float in a sea of dead trees where farmers once grew crops near Villa Jaragua, Dominican Republic. The lake rose
37 feet in 10 years, swallowing at least 40,000 acres.   © Jason Henry, The New York Times, Redux

In 2012 and 2013, León and researchers at the City College of New York installed a handful of weather stations to monitor future rainfall and humidity. They also installed sensors at both lakes to measure daily changes in water levels, which they hope to compare to rainfall data.

Apart from a U.N. survey of Haitians affected by the lake, just one study has focused entirely on Haitian side. Produced in 2011 by EGIS International, an engineering firm controlled by the French government, it endorsed the notion that increased rainfall has led to Lake Azuéi's rise. It too speculated that climate change might be to blame.

Hoping for a Solution

If the water's rise could somehow be reversed, the sunken land could probably be restored to its original state.

Dalbes Garcia Borques, a landowner in Duvergé, says that about four of his acres have resurfaced in the last two years as the lake receded slightly. He paid some workers to dig small irrigation trenches from nearby canals to "wash" away the salt residue left by the lake. One year later, he's harvesting potatoes.

"It's an expensive and arduous process," says Borques.

And yet, it could be cause for optimism: If scientists and the island's governments could work together to reverse the lakes' rise, the land, barren and destroyed as it may look, could once again resemble the land that has not yet succumbed to the water's grasp—lush with palm trees and tall grasses upon which fat cows graze.

For now, farmers seem hesitant to invest in the labor it would take to wash the re-emerged land and replant. With no solution in sight, most expect the water will continue to rise—flooding even more of the limited land on this small island.

The reporting for this article was made possible by support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

- National Geographic.

OMEN: Plagues & Pestilences - Is It Alien, Fish Or Just Foul, "MUTANT" Sea Creature With A Nose, Feet, Tail And WING Baffles Caribbean Island?!

While it has scales, the fish (shown upside down) also has two strange feet, complete with toes.
(Photo: The Sun/Wessex News)

February 4, 2016 - CARRIACOU - An “alien-looking” creature likened to “something out of a sci-fi horror film” has caused a stir in the Grenadine island of Carriacou.

The fishy story began when the strange-looking specimen was caught in the port of Windward, reportedly giving some seasoned fishermen quite a fright.

The foot-long fish reportedly had humanoid “feet” complete with toes, which allowed it to walk across the ocean floor, a “perfect human nose,” wings and scales.

And the apparent hybrid, whether fish or fowl, had disbelieving fishermen stumped.

One islander said “Everyone crowded round to look – nobody had ever seen anything like it.

“Quite a few people were pretty scared and thought it looked like something out of a sci-fi horror film.”

Veteran fisherman Hope McLawrence, 74, who found himself eyeball to eyeball with the “alien” creature when he hauled in his nets, admitted he was baffled.

He said the foot-long beast had two feet with toes, no fin, a long bone on its back and “a perfect human nose immediately above its mouth.”

“I have never discovered anything like this before. The wings and tail look extremely complicated,” he noted.

McLawrence, a master fisherman with more than fifty years’ experience in the industry, added: “By the look of the creature it cannot swim but apparently walks on the sea bed.

“This has shocked me to a considerable extent since I never thought that a creature like this even existed, much less in the harbour of these shallow, friendly waters.

“This is like a mystery and breathes a chill with this discovery,” he indicated.

The 'alien fish' was caught on the island of Carriacou, a few miles from Grenada (stock image)

The attention-grabbing creature is believed to be a frogfish, an ambush predator that can eat almost anything that will fit into its mouth, which can expand to 12 times its normal size to accommodate prey such as fish, crabs and shrimp, as well as other frogfish.

Frogfish, a type of anglerfish, are masters of disguise and have a textured exterior that aids in their camouflage. They vary in colour and often have unique spines or bumps that change with their surroundings.

Their amazing ability to camouflage themselves serves as protection from predators and may explain why they have not been spotted by Carriacou fishermen before.

Unlike the Carriacou discovery, however, frogfish do not have scales.

According to the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), frogfish lack a swim bladder and use their modified pectoral fins to walk or run across the seafloor.

They can be found in tropical and subtropical oceans and seas off the coasts of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia. - Caribbean 360.

PLAGUES & PESTILENCES: Bite Fear - Zika Mosquitoes' Habit May Foil U.S. Elimination Efforts!

A close up shot of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which carries the Zika virus.

February 3, 2016 - UNITED STATES - Health experts are bracing for Zika virus to spread to the United States by April or May, borne by a mosquito that craves human blood, feeds during the day and lives under beds and inside closets.

Until now, the best weapon against disease-carrying mosquitoes in the United States has been outdoor pesticide fog sprayed by truck and airplane. But health experts fear the typical approach will do little to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries Zika.

Controlling that mosquito requires pesticide sprayed under beds, on the walls and in closets, said Gonzalo Vazquez-Prokopec, who studies disease transmission patterns of mosquitoes at Emory's School of Public Health's Department of Environmental Sciences.

"We know fogging is not effective," Vazquez-Prokopec said.

Though there could be localized U.S. outbreaks, most likely along the Gulf Coast, federal officials said they hope the wide use of air conditioning, window screens and regular garbage collection will mitigate the risk.

The World Health Organization declared the Zika outbreak an international health emergency this week after evidence linking the virus to microcephaly, a devastating birth defect that can cause unusually small heads and permanent brain damage. Brazil has reported 3,700 suspected cases of microcephaly. The outbreak is now affecting at least 25 countries and territories, most of them in Latin American and the Caribbean, and could infect up to 4 million people in the Americas, according to the WHO.

More than 30 people in the United States have been confirmed to have Zika after traveling to an affected country. There has been one report of transmission within the United States, but experts believe that will increase as the weather warms up, the local mosquito population multiplies and many more travelers return to the country.

"All it takes is one of those individuals who arrives back in the United States at the stage where they have virus in their blood," said Scott Weaver, an expert in mosquito-borne viral diseases at the University Texas Medical Branch's Galveston National Laboratory. At that point, he said, a single mosquito biting the affected person could spread the disease to others.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday the risk of transmission now is "quite low," but as temperatures rise, "we want to make sure that we have got a strategy to try to limit the spread of this disease when that happens."

 A health agent shows a chemical compound to kill mosquito larvae during an inspection for the Aedes aegypti mosquito inside a house at Vila Canoas slum,
as part of efforts to prevent the spread of the Zika virus, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 2, 2016. Reuters/Pilar Olivares

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working on a control program for Zika, which will likely involve public education about eliminating breeding sites and spraying to kill mosquito larvae and adult mosquitoes, especially in areas experiencing outbreaks, said spokesman Tom Skinner.

Until then, the CDC is circulating guidelines developed for combating chikungunya, a close cousin to Zika carried by the same types of mosquitoes. Local health departments are also sorting out their approach to fight Zika..

"If it's going to happen, I think it will happen in the warmer months, likely in April and May," said Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Zika thrives in impoverished areas, spreading widely in garbage-filled neighborhoods and in homes and apartments with no screens on the windows, conditions that are present in many Gulf Coast communities in the United States, Hotez said.

THE VECTORS

The Aedes aegypti mosquito that carries Zika also transmits dengue fever and chikungunya. Aedes aegypti is mostly found in southern parts of the United States, such as the coastal regions of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Experts believe it arrived on slave trade ships from Africa, spreading yellow fever in port cities, including a 1793 outbreak in Philadelphia that wiped out 10 percent of the city's population of 50,000.

Unlike Aedes aegypti, most mosquitoes common to North America feed at night and live in wooded areas.

Recent research suggests the pest may be adapting to colder temperatures. David Severson at the University of Notre Dame discovered a population of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that has spent the past four winters underground in Washington, D.C.’s Capitol Hill neighborhood

Aggressive abatement involving indoor and outdoor fogging and breeding ground eradication between 1947 and 1970 nearly wiped out Aedes aegypti. At the time, the mosquitoes were the source of yellow fever in across the Americas. But budget cuts and the development of an effective yellow fever vaccine ended eradication efforts, and Aedes aegypti populations rebounded.

Scientists believe Aedes albopictus, or the Asian tiger mosquito, also is capable of spreading Zika. This aggressive biter arrived in the United States in 1985 and has replaced Aedes aegypti in some places. Its range includes at least 32 U.S. states as far north as Illinois and Pennsylvania and in pockets as far west as California.

Aedes albopictus breeds in small containers of water, bites during the daytime and lives near population centers. A less picky eater, it also feasts on pets and wild animals.Researchers in Brazil are studying whether the Culex species, a carrier of the West Nile virus commonly found in many southeastern U.S. states, might carry Zika, which could explain the rapid spread in Brazil. These mosquitoes rest in the daytime and bite at dusk or after dark.

PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM

All of this poses a challenge for U.S. health departments, which have faced pressure to reduce mosquito abatement activities amid budget cuts and increasing concerns over exposure to pesticides.

"The current methods we have some shortcomings,” said the CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat. “We're going to need to work in future on identifying better options."

Brazil's government has mounted a door-to-door campaign and has authorized public health officials to enter properties by force if necessary. Health workers search for potential breeding spots and in some areas use indoor foggers, applying pesticides that stick to walls.

"That is not going to fly in the United States," said Joseph Conlon, technical advisor for the American Mosquito Control Association, which represents researchers, public health officials and pesticide makers.

There are no pesticides registered by the Environmental Protection Agency for indoor application, Conlon said. Instead, abatement will likely focus on typical breeding sites, from birdbaths to potted plants, dog bowls, tin cans, tires and other places likely to become inundated with water.

"Our best bet is to remove the breeding habitats," he said. "It's a lot harder to do than you would think. People don't want to change their habits," he said. - Reuters.

PLAGUES & PESTILENCES: The Latest Developments On The Zika Virus - World Health Officials Mobilize; South America Fumigates; Brazil Says Virus Outbreak Is Worse Than Believed; Brazil Authorities Forced Entry To Private Property To Fight Disease; Athletes In Rio Stay Inside, Slather On Repellent; Aussie Diagnosed With Infection After Bali Monkey Bite, Expert Warn Of Missed Cases; Sexually-Transmitted Zika Case Confirmed In Texas; First Case Confirmed In Jamaica!

The World Health Organization says a surge in cases in South America of microcephaly is likely caused by the mosquito-borne Zika virus
(AFP Photo/Christophe Simon)

February 3, 2016 - HEALTH - World health officials mobilized with emergency response plans and funding pleas Tuesday as fears grow that the Zika virus, blamed for a surge in the number of brain-damaged babies, could spread globally and threaten the Summer Olympics.

World health officials mobilize on Zika threat

The World Health Organization, which declared the outbreak an international emergency Monday, said it had created a global Zika response unit to contain the virus and get to the bottom of a corresponding rise in severe birth defects and a potentially crippling neurological disorder.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescents Societies joined the WHO in calling the outbreak an "emergency," and appealed for 2.4 million Swiss francs ($2.36 million) to fund the response.

French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi meanwhile announced it had begun research into a vaccine for Zika, for which there is currently no specific treatment.

Developing a vaccine could however take years, experts say.

Zika, which was first identified in Uganda, causes relatively mild flu-like symptoms and a rash. But the apparent link to birth defects and a potentially paralyzing neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome is causing worldwide alarm.

In Brazil, which has been hardest hit by the outbreak sweeping Latin America, Olympics organizers said they are concerned but downplayed fears -- one day after the government warned pregnant women not to attend the Games.

"We are sure we will win this battle and it will not affect the Games," said Rio 2016 organizing committee spokesman Mario Andrada.

FActfile on the zika virus (AFP Photo/Gustavo Izús, Adrian Leung, Anella Reta)

The Olympics will be held in Rio de Janeiro from August 5 to 21, during the southern hemisphere winter, which means there will be fewer of the mosquitoes that transmit the disease, organizers underlined.

WHO expert Anthony Costello emphasized the urgency of rapid action, stressing there was no reason to believe the crisis would remain limited to Latin America, where 25 countries so far have reported Zika cases.

"We are worried that this could also spread back into other areas of the world where the population may not be immune, and we know that the mosquitoes that carry Zika virus... are present through most of Africa, parts of southern Europe and many parts of Asia, particularly south Asia," he said.

Underlining Costello's point, Thai officials announced a man had contracted the virus in the country.

Cape Verde, off the coast of west Africa, and Indonesia have also reported domestic Zika cases.

- Free abortion pills -

Jitters over the virus have spread far beyond the affected areas to Europe and North America, where dozens of cases have been identified among travelers returning from Latin America.

Costello, an expert in microcephaly -- a condition in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and brains -- said health officials worldwide needed to adopt a standard definition and measurement of the condition in order to respond to suspicions it is being caused by pregnant mothers catching Zika.

"The development of diagnostic tests is absolutely critical," he said.

The World Health Organisation has declared a global emergency in response to the spread of Zika - but which countries are currently affected by the virus?

"At the moment we believe the association is guilty until proven otherwise."

UNICEF for its part said it was working with governments to get information out to pregnant women on how to protect themselves from mosquito bites -- currently the only way to prevent the virus.

A Dutch women's rights group meanwhile offered to send free pills to trigger an abortion to pregnant women in Latin America, a region known for its restrictive abortion laws.

"We are extremely worried that (the outbreak) might cause increasing unsafe abortions," said Rebecca Gomperts, founder and director of Women on Web.

Latin American countries, particularly Brazil, have reported a surge in babies born with microcephaly since the Zika outbreak was declared in the region last year.

Since October, Brazil has reported some 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly, of which 270 have been confirmed -- up from 147 in 2014.

Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica and Puerto Rico have all warned women not to get pregnant.

Ecuador said Tuesday it had registered its first pregnant woman infected with Zika, saying her baby was at low risk for microcephaly because she was already near the end of her second trimester.

Zika panic also spread to the auto industry, as Indian carmaker Tata Motors announced it would rebrand its new Zica hatchback -- which stood for "zippy car." - Yahoo.

Brazil says Zika virus outbreak worse than believed

The World Health Organization declared a global emergency over the explosive spread of the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects in the Americas,
calling it an "extraordinary event" that poses a public health threat to other parts of the world.

Brazil's top health official said on Monday that the Zika virus outbreak is proving to be worse than believed because most cases show no symptoms, but improved testing should allow the country to get a better grip on the burgeoning public health crisis.

Health Minister Marcelo Castro told Reuters that Brazil will start mandatory reporting of cases by local governments next week when most states will have labs equipped to test for Zika, the mosquito-borne virus that has quickly spread through Latin America. The virus has no vaccine or cure at present.

On Monday, the World Health Organization declared the Zika outbreak to be a global emergency, a decision that should help fast-track international action and research priorities.


WORKING WITH U.S. ON VACCINE

Castro, a psychiatrist from Rio, said the virus cannot be transmitted from person to person, only by mosquito, addressing fears that it could be spread through saliva, semen or urine.

By next week, labs in all but three of Brazil's states will be able to test whether a person has had Zika or not, he said.

And by next month, the labs will have a test that can detect all three viruses borne by the Aedes aegypti mosquito - dengue, chikungunya and Zika. The test, however, will only be effective during the initial infection period of five days.

Castro said Brazilian researchers are convinced that Zika is the cause of the 3,700 confirmed and suspected cases in Brazil of microcephaly in newborns. Ninety percent of children born with the condition will have retarded mental and physical development, experts say.

"The microcephaly cases are increasing by the week and we do not have an estimate of how many there will be. The situation is serious and worrying," Castro said.

Brazilian biomedical research centers are joining forces with U.S. counterparts to try to find a Zika vaccine in record time, Castro said. A partnership between the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Brazil's Butantan Institute will seek to develop a vaccine by adding a gene to an existing one for dengue, he said.

Until there is a breakthrough on a vaccine, Brazil's only option is to try to eradicate the mosquito that spreads the virus, Castro said, with the government mobilizing all its possible resources and people, including tens of thousands of soldiers, to go door-to-door seeking places where the insect breeds.

Rousseff signed a temporary decree on Monday that makes it obligatory for residents to allow health workers to inspect their homes and properties for still water deposits where the Aedes aegypti mosquito lays its eggs.

Asked if Brazil would ease its restrictions on abortion to allow women with Zika to terminate pregnancies, Castro said it would be up to Congress to make that change. The government, he said, is sticking with the current law that makes abortion in the world's largest Roman Catholic country illegal except in cases of rape and risk to the mother's life.

Brazil will follow the U.S. decision last week to prohibit blood donations from people who have been infected with Zika, Castro said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, has said it is planning to require people who have traveled to an affected country to defer giving blood, but details on how that might work are still being determined. - Yahoo.

South America fumigated

Zika Virus: officials in Dominican Republic take drastic precautions.
GETTY

The 2016 Rio Paralympics site is among thousands of public spaces being disinfected by frantic officials trying to get a grip on the Zika virus.

Graveyards, homes and schools are also being fumigated to try and kill off the mosquitos spreading the virus, which was yesterday declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

With no current vaccine, officials are turning to preventative measures, including fumigation.

Currently the most important protective measures are the control of mosquito populations and the prevention of mosquito bites, health experts said.

Eerie photographs have emerged of officials in full body suits and face masks smoking out public spaces which are usually bustling with people.

Classrooms still with lessons written on the white boards are abandoned as smoke surrounds pupil desks.

Gardens, warehouses and homes are also filled with fumigation gases to try and reach the bugs.

The WHO made its decision to declare the outbreak an emergency after an urgent meeting in Geneva to discuss the "explosive" nature of the virus.

WHO officials have predicted as many as 4million people could be infected with the virus this year.

The last time a global emergency was declared was for the Ebola outbreak, which is thought to have led to more than 11,000 deaths.

Zika has been linked to thousands of babies being born with underdeveloped brains in Brazil.

Colombia has also seen a rise in the number of patients diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder which can cause paralysis

Following a meeting of an International Health Regulations Emergency Committee, WHO director general Dr Margaret Chan warned the causal relationship between infection during pregnancy and microcephaly in babies is "strongly suspected" but not scientifically proven.

The committee advised the association between the virus and microcephaly - a condition where the child has an underdeveloped brain - constitutes an "extraordinary event". - Express.

Brazil authorizes forced entry to private property to fight Zika

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff authorized health officials to enter private properties by force if necessary in an effort to control the spread of the mosquito-borne virus Zika, which the government has dubbed an "imminent danger to public health."

The presidential decree was published in the government's official gazette on Monday and allows the forced entry by health officials into public and private properties if they have been abandoned or the owners are not present.

Officials are looking for breeding grounds for mosquitoes that can carry the virus, which has spread rapidly over the Americas and particularly in Brazil. - Yahoo.

Athletes in Rio stay inside, slather on repellent for Zika

Aline Silva has had the dengue fever twice, and she's not taking any chances with the Zika virus.Silva is a Brazilian wrestler who hopes to win an Olympic medal in just over six months in Rio de Janeiro. At a test event on Sunday for the games— at a venue in Rio's new Olympic Park — she wasn't alone in being concerned.

Several non-Brazilian athletes talked about slathering on mosquito repellent, staying in their hotel rooms and away from the water and the beaches in order to avoid mosquitoes.

Brazil is an epicenter of the rapidly spreading Zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease that Brazilian scientists say is linked to a rare birth defect.

The growing international health emergency around Zika could scare athletes and fans from coming to South America's first Olympics as organizers prepare for hundreds of thousands of visitors.

"For me it's very worrying," said Silva, who said she applies repellent about every 90 minutes when she's away from home.

"Really, the biggest problem is in training and competing — when I can't use it (repellent)," she said. "I have had dengue twice, so I am aware about all of this. Maybe I am more worried than most."

Asked if other Brazilian athletes were concerned about Zika, Silva replied: "Yes, of course."

American wrestler Adeline Gray, a three-time world champion who will be an Olympic favorite for gold, raised the issue of Zika's link to birth defects and cases of babies being born with unusually small heads and possible brain damage.

"I think if I was planning to have a child next month, I would be extremely uneasy about this," said Gray, who competes in the 75-kilogram class. "Maybe that would have changed my decision (to come here)."

Gray said her coaches have banned her from going swimming in Brazil during her short stay.

"Unfortunately we're not spending too much time outside. We're wearing long sleeves, long pants and just making sure we have on as much bug spray as we can."

Gray said she's trying to avoid the distraction. As several reporters kept asking her questions, she politely stepped away to watch an on-going match at the new Carioca Arena 1.

"This anxiety has to kind of subside so you can focus on what you are doing," she said. "If you are worried about that in the back of your mind, then you're not doing your job well enough."

Japan coach Shigeo Kinase gave similar advice to his wrestlers about staying indoors.

"We are trying not to leave the hotel too often," he said. "If my athletes go out shopping, I go with them."

Rio organizers have been scouring Olympics venues daily for two weeks, looking for standing water where mosquitoes breed. Rio spokesman Mario Andrada said the inspections would continue daily until the games open on Aug. 5. That will be in Brazil's winter when it's cooler, drier and the mosquito population is smaller.

Andrada emphasized that no one is publicly talking about cancelling or postponing the games.

"This has never been mentioned. No way," Andrada said. "It's impossible to do that. There is no reason to do that." - Yahoo.

Aussie diagnosed with Zika after Bali monkey bite, experts warn of missed cases

Tame monkeys roam freely at Ubud Monkey Forest in Bali. Photo: AP

The fast-spreading Zika virus is likely being under-diagnosed in South-East Asia, infectious disease experts have warned in several reports, including that of an Australian who was infected after a monkey bite in Bali.

The virus, which is being investigated for links to potentially fatal defects in unborn babies in South America, is believed to have been transmitted primarily by mosquitos, with only rare reports of exceptions.

But the authors of a report into the case of a 27-year-old Australian man last year have proposed that a monkey bite he received at the Ubud Monkey Forest could have been to blame.

The authors of the report, including doctors from the hospital and academics from the Victorian Diseases Reference Laboratory and the Menzies School of Health Research, wrote that while mosquito-borne transmission was possible,the monkey was a plausible route of transmission.

They also noted the virus has similar symptoms to other viruses, such as dengue fever, and the limited availability of the test to detect Zika virus in Indonesia.

"Transmission of Zika virus by monkey bite or other (non-mosquito) routes, and attribution of illness to dengue or other infections, may be more frequent than the absence of prior reports suggests," says the report, published in the Southeast Asian Journal of Tropical Medicine and Public Health in May 2015.

Meanwhile, researchers studying an outbreak of dengue fever at Jambi Province in central Sumatra in early 2015 also pointed out the possibility Zika was being under-diagnosed due to similarities with the common symptoms of other diseases.

While the recent links between Zika and birth defects is causing alarm, experts say 80 per cent of people do not experience sickness when they get the virus. When people are affected, the symptoms are usually mild and include a rash and fever. Most people clear the virus from their blood within a week.

They had stumbled on a 27-year local man who contracted the disease despite having never travelled outside of Indonesia. A report into the case was this week uploaded to the Eijkman​ Institute for Molecular Biology Indonesia's website ahead of publication in a Centre for Disease Control journal in May.

Frilasita Aisyah Yudhaputri​ from the institute's virus research unit said while the virus was believed to have existed in Indonesia for some time, the Asian strain of Zika was "mild" and not believed to cause birth defects.

"The one we found is the Asian strain, … the same found in Thailand, the Philippines and Cambodia.It is not the one related to microcephaly (a congenital condition associated with incomplete brain development.)," she said.

A 2013 report into a previously healthy 52-year-old Australian woman who returned home from Jakarta with Zika misdiagnosed as Dengue also suggested it is possible many cases were being missed.

The report said that at the time, this was the first case of a Zika virus infection reported in a returned traveller to Australia although evidence of the virus had been reported in Java, Indonesia.

"However it is likely that many cases are either undiagnosed (because of mild symptoms) or misdiagnosed, presumably most commonly as dengue fever, given their clinical similarities," the report in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene stated.

Dr Mike Catton, from the Doherty Institute's Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, said it was difficult to know whether Zika was being under-diagnosed in Indonesia but said he believed it was unlikely that a "large outbreak" like that being experienced in South America could be overlooked.

He said of 1500 Australians the institute had tested after returning from overseas with an illness, only seven tested positive for Zika since 2012.

"I think that testing is likely to be picking up Zika if it's there in Australian return travellers," he said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has not adjusted its travel advice for Indonesia because the transmission of the virus is not considered to be "ongoing" there, a spokeswoman said. - SMH.

Sexually-transmitted Zika case confirmed in Texas

Health officials on Tuesday reported that a person in Texas has become infected with the Zika virus through sex in the first case of the illness being transmitted within the United States amid the current outbreak in Latin America.

The unidentified person had not traveled but had sex with a person who had returned from Venezuela and fallen ill with Zika, Dallas County health officials said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a statement saying lab tests confirmed the non-traveler was infected with Zika.

While Thompson told the television station that the case of sexual transmission is "a game-changer," he added that he didn't want people in Dallas County to overreact. Health officials and Thompson noted that sexual partners can protect themselves by using condoms to prevent spreading sexually transmitted infections. - AP.

First Zika virus case confirmed in Jamaica

The Jamaica Ministry of Health has confirmed the Caribbean country’s first case of the Zika virus.

A ministry statement released on Saturday says a 4-year-old child has recovered after contracting Zika.

It adds that authorities have stepped up prevention and detection efforts in the Portmore, St. Catherine area where the child lives.

Caribbean Public Health Agency lab tests for the virus came back positive on Friday afternoon.

Authorities are investigating the case in hopes of determining the source of infection.

The child began showing symptoms on Jan. 17 and had earlier travelled to Texas.

Jamaica’s Minister of Health will provide a full update at a news briefing on Monday.

Pregnant women and others on the island are being urged to take precautions to avoid the mosquito that transmits the disease. - The Star.

MONUMENTAL PLAGUES & PESTILENCES: The World Health Organization Declares GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY Over Zika Virus - Says Causal Link To Brain Defects "STRONGLY SUSPECTED"!

According to WHO, the Zika virus linked to babies being born with abnormally small head is likely to spread throughout nearly all the Americas.

February 1, 2016 - HEALTH - The World Health Organization on Monday designated the Zika virus a public health emergency of international concern, an action it has taken only three times before and which paves the way for the mobilization of more funding and manpower to fight the mosquito-born pathogen spreading "explosively" through the Americas.

Zika, which was first identified more than 50 years ago, has alarmed public health officials in recent months because of its possible association with thousands of cases of brain defects, known as microcephaly, in newborns. Estimates are that the virus will infect up to 4 million people by year's end.

Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, said at a press briefing that the primary reason for the decision was that members of an 18-member advisory panel agree that a causal relationship between Zika and with microcephaly is "strongly suspected" although it hasn't been scientifically proven. She said that given the seriousness of the conditions being reported, the consequences of waiting were too great.

“Even the clusters of microcephaly alone are enough to declare a public health emergency because of its heavy burden" on women, families, and the community, Chan said.


WATCH: Zika prevention measures set up across the Americas.

"Can you imagine if we do not do all these works now and wait until the science comes out, then people will say why don't you take action?" Chan said.

According to the latest figures, there have been 4,000 suspected cases in Brazil and 270 have been confirmed as microcephaly with evidence of an infection. There were also several cases in French Polynesia in 2014, WHO officials said.

Bruce Aylward, WHO's executive director of outbreaks and emergencies, said there have also been increases in reports of

The declaration represents the WHO's highest level of alert and is only invoked in response to the most dire threats. The first time was in 2009 during the H1N1 influenza epidemic that is believed to have infected up to 200 million worldwide; the second in May 2014 when a paralyzing form of polio re-emerged in Pakistan and Syria; and the third in August 2014 with Ebola in West Africa.


WATCH: What you need to know about the Zika virus.

“Zika is the latest emerging health threat, and a serious concern for pregnant women and their babies,” said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a statement.

“The WHO declaration calls the world to action, committing resources to affected countries, to finding better means of mosquito control and virus prevention, and advising others on ways to avoid Zika infection. CDC, along with the entire U.S. government, is actively involved in the world's Zika response and working 24/7 to learn more about the virus and protect health.”

“This is supposed to be the official global sounding bell that governments and others need to start to really paying attention to this,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of the WHO’s declaration. “It’s like sounding a clarion.”

Fauci said that while Zika is an entirely different disease than Ebola, global health officials – and the WHO in particular – have been determined to react quickly to the current outbreak, given the widespread criticism that the world reacted far too sluggishly to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.“They obviously want to stay ahead of the curve,” he said of the WHO. “The last big outbreak – Ebola – they got severely criticized for moving too slow.” So far, he said, the agency has done better this time around. “It’s not too soon, it’s not too late. It’s the appropriate time,” he said of Monday’s emergency declaration.

Coloured Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM) of a female yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti.

Infectious disease experts and others have been pressuring the WHO to escalate its response to Zika for several months, warning of the mistakes world leaders made during the Ebola crisis when a lack of coordination delayed quarantines and treatment.

Chan said there is no reason for travel or trade restrictions at this time.

Much of the alarm about Zika comes from reports from Brazil, the epicenter of the outbreak, where Zika is suspected as a cause of what may be up to thousands of babies being born with abnormally small heads and incomplete brain development. Researchers are also investigating a possible link between the virus and a surge in Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare condition that can lead to paralysis that have been documented in Brazil, French Polynesia and El Salvador.

Bruce Aylward, the WHO's director of outbreaks and health emergencies, said that the evidence pointing to both a “temporal and geographic association” between Zika and microcephaly was strong.

"This is definitely the right measure to be taking at this time based on the information available," he said.

In an interview with the Reuters news agency, Brazilian Heath Minister Marcelo Castro said the outbreak is his country is worse than previously believed because an estimated 80 percent of people who become infected with the virus do not exhibit known symptoms.

Castro also said every municipality in Brazil will be required to report all Zika cases to a central database starting next week. In further controls, Brazil will join other nations in banning blood donations from people who had the virus.

Last week, Castro warned that Brazil was “badly losing” the battle against the mosquito blamed for spreading Zika and said that more than 220,000 members of Brazil’s military would be mobilized in eradication efforts. The plans included distributin mosquito repellent to about 400,000 pregnant women, according to Brazil’s O Globo newspaper. - Washington Post.

PLAGUES & PESTILENCES: Zika Virus Has Infected 2,100 PREGNANT Colombians Health Officials Say!

The Zika virus, which has rampaged through the Americas, has been linked to the devastating birth defect microcephaly,
which prevents fetus' brains from developing properly. (Jose Cabezas/Reuters)

January 31, 2016 - COLOMBIA - More than 2,100 pregnant Colombians are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the country's national health institute said on Saturday, as the disease continues its spread across the Americas.

The virus has been linked to the devastating birth defect microcephaly, which prevents fetus' brains from developing properly. There is no vaccine or treatment. There are 20,297 confirmed cases of the virus in Colombia, the national health institute said in a epidemiology bulletin, with 2,116 pregnant women among them.

There are so far no reported cases of microcephaly or deaths from the virus in Colombia. The institute said 37.2 per cent of pregnant women with Zika live in Norte de Santander province, along the eastern border with Venezuela.

Earlier figures from the health ministry showed 560 pregnant women had the virus, out of more than 13,500 infections.

Zika cases have been confirmed in 23 countries and territories in the Americas and scientists are racing to develop a vaccine for the virus.

Dejailson Arruda holds his daughter Luiza at their house in Santa Cruz do Capibaribe, Pernambuco state, Brazil in December. Luiza was born in October
with microcephaly and her mother was infected with the Zika virus after a mosquito bite. (Felipe Dana/Associated Press)

Nearly half of Colombia's Zika cases have been reported in the country's Caribbean region, the bulletin said. More than 60 per cent of those infected are women.

The health ministry has said Zika infection falls within the health requirements women must meet to get abortions in the country, which restricts the procedure unless patients are victims of rape, have significant medical problems or the fetus is fatally deformed.

Many women, especially those living far from large cities, struggle to find abortion providers even when they meet the legal requirements and illegal abortions are widespread.

The government has urged women to delay pregnancy for six to eight months to avoid potential infection. Officials expect up to 700,000 cases.

Brazil is the country hit hardest by the disease. It has reported around 3,700 cases of microcephaly strongly suspected to be related to Zika. The World Health Organization has said as many as four million people in the Americas may become infected. - CBC.

PLAGUES & PESTILENCES: The Latest Developments In The Zika Virus Outbreak - British Travelers Advised To Use Condoms, Delay Trying For A Baby; Brazilian President Calls For Mosquito Extermination; Brazil Fumigates Olympic Venue As Fears Mount; Puerto Rico Confirms 19 Cases; U.S. Health Authority Says Virus Transmitted Through Sex In 2 Possible Cases; Texas Is The Perfect Place For The Virus To Flourish; Victim Relates First-Hand Story Of Her Experience With The Infection!

© Ueslei Marcelino / Reuters

January 29, 2016 - HEALTH - Here are the latest news reports on the Zika virus, as it spreads "explosively" across the Americas.

British travelers advised to use condoms, delay trying for a baby

Couples trying to conceive a baby should delay for one month if one or both partners have just returned from a Central or South American country afflicted by the Zika virus, health officials have warned.

Information from Public Health England (PHE) suggests men use condoms for at least 28 days after returning from any of the 23 countries, including Brazil and Mexico, especially if their partner is not taking a contraceptive or is already pregnant.

Its advice comes after a warning for pregnant women to avoid traveling to countries where there has been an outbreak.

Men who suffered symptoms of the Zika virus, including fever, rash and joint pain, should avoid having unprotected sex for six months, the healthcare body warned.

There is no known cure or treatment for the Zika virus, and experts say a vaccination could be years away from being fully developed.
While it is not deadly to humans, the virus is thought to trigger microcephaly in fetuses, and cause them to be born with abnormally small heads and brains.

In Central and South America some 4,000 babies are thought to have been affected by the disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the spread of the disease could leave 4 million infected by the end of 2016.

PHE warned returning travelers against unprotected sex.

“If a female partner is at risk of getting pregnant, or is already pregnant, condom use is advised for a male traveler for 28 days after his return from a Zika transmission area if he had no symptoms of unexplained fever and rash,” the advice read.

“Condom use is advised for a male traveler for 6 months following recovery if a clinical illness compatible with Zika virus infection or laboratory confirmed Zika virus infection was reported.”

Six Britons have already been found to have contracted the virus, which is transmitted through mosquito bites. They caught the disease while travelling in Columbia, Mexico and other South American countries.

Dr Anthony Wilson from the Pirbright Institute explained that the mosquitoes that carry the virus would find it hard to survive in the UK.

“Aedes aegypti, the yellow fever mosquito, does not occur in the UK. It’s too cold for Aedes aegypti to establish in the UK, although in ideal summer conditions introduced individual mosquitoes might be able to survive for a few days; there was a small outbreak of yellow fever in Wales (Swansea) in 1861 which is believed to have been spread via mosquitoes that were inadvertently introduced on a ship returning from Cuba,” he told the Telegraph.

“It is plausible that a related species, Aedes albopictus (the Asian tiger mosquito) could be playing a role in the transmission of Zika virus in the Brazilian outbreak; it has been implicated during other Zika outbreaks.”However, one British expert claims that the mosquitos have already been spotted in the English countryside, saying they could travel to the country in the stagnant water trapped in car tires. - RT.

Brazilian President Calls for Mosquito Extermination Amid Zika Virus Spread

© REUTERS/ Ueslei Marcelino

The current Zika virus outbreak originated in Brazil last year and later spread across Latin America, having been registered in over 20 different countries since March 2015.

"While we don't have a vaccine against the virus Zika, the war should focus on the extermination of mosquito breeding sites," Rousseff wrote on Twitter.

On Wednesday, Nicaragua became the 22nd country affected by the Zika outbreak. The country’s government announced that two people had been infected with the virus in the country’s capital, Managua.

The Zika virus affects primarily monkeys and humans and is transmitted by daytime-active mosquitos. It does not cause serious complications in adults, however, it can lead to babies being born with microcephaly, which is a case of an underdeveloped brain.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned pregnant women to avoid traveling to at least 24 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific amid the Zika virus outbreak. - Sputnik.

Brazil fumigates Olympic venue as fears mount over Zika

Health workers fumigate the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro Photo: AP

Concerns over the Zika virus reached new heights on Tuesday after Brazil sent fumigators into Rio de Janeiro's world-famous carnival venue that will help host the Olympic games amid intensified efforts to control the mosquito-borne infection.

Workers in protective overalls and goggles sprayed the Sambadrome facility two weeks before it stages next month's carnival parades even as a senior official stoked further fears by suggesting that the war against Zika - thought to cause brain defects in new-born babies - was being lost. The 90,000-capacity Sambadrome - which has hosted outdoor concerts by major acts like David Bowie and the Rolling Stones - is one of Rio's most iconic venues and will stage the archery events during this summer's Olympic games.

It became the unexpected focus of attention in the government's public health campaign against Zika as Marcelo Castro, Brazil's health minister, said 220,,000 troops would go door-to-door in an attempt to eradicate the virus before the carnival takes place on February 7 and 8.

Mosquito repellent would be handed out to 400,000 women on social welfare, he said.

Yet Mr Castro appeared to undermine hopes of re-assuring the public by saying that the drive to combat the virus had come too late, prompting calls for him to be sacked.

The country was "badly losing the battle" against the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Zika, as well as dengue, hikungunya and yellow fever, he told a crisis meeting in Brasilia, Brazil's capital city.

"The mosquito has been here in Brazil for three decades, and we are badly losing the battle against the mosquito," he said in comments that were criticised as "fatalistic" by the Geneva-based World Health Organisation. - Telegraph.

Puerto Rico Confirms 19 Cases of Zika Virus

© REUTERS/ Denis Balibouse

The US territory of Puerto Rico has 19 cases of the mosquito-born Zika virus, which is believed to cause serious birth defects if contracted by pregnant women, the Puerto Rico Health Department confirmed on Tuesday.

"[Puerto Rico] today confirmed 19 cases of Zika virus in Puerto Rico, chiefly in the southeastern zone," Health Department Secretary Ana Riu was quoted as saying by El Vocero.

The US Centers for Disease Control has stated there are serious birth defects of the brain called microcephaly as well as other poor pregnancy outcomes in babies of mothers who were infected with the Zika virus. The Zika virus can be spread from pregnant women to unborn babies.

Puerto Rico epidemiologist Brenda Rivera said the majority of cases are in the island's southeast region, according to a separate report on Fox News. None of the victims were pregnant and that many of were elderly, Rivera added. - Sputnik.

Zika virus transmitted through sex in 2 possible cases – US health authority

© Josue Decavele / Reuters

There are two recorded cases when the highly dangerous Zika virus may have been transmitted through sexual intercourse, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. The WHO says between 3 and 4 million people may have been infected this year. "There is one reported case of Zika virus through possible sexual transmission," said Anna Schuchat, deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), referring to the case of a 44-year-old Tahiti man who contracted the virus during its outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013.

A test revealed high levels of the virus in his semen even after it was no longer present in his blood samples, the New York Times reported.

Another case of Zika exposure through sex dates back to 2008. Dr. Brian D. Foy, a US biologist, was infected with the virus while conducting a malaria research in Senegal. He was reportedly bitten by the mosquitoes he collected for the study. After coming back to Colorado, he displayed various symptoms, including a rash, fatigue and a headache that ensued from as then-unidentified infection, apparently transmitted by mosquitoes. He also complained about pain in his genitals and blood in his semen.

His assistant, Kevin C. Kobylinski, who was working along him in Africa, developed similar symptoms. Both were tested negative for malaria, dengue and yellow fever, which the Aedes mosquito typically carries. In a few days, the mysterious virus manifested itself in Foy’s wife, who also suffered from a rash, severe headache and bloodshot eyes.

In 2009, after their frozen blood samples were retested for the Zika virus, the results came back positive. While no one of Foy’s four children fell ill and his wife couldn’t have caught the infection in Colorado, Foy concluded that Zika virus was “most likely a sexual transmitted infection.” He wrote about his finding in an article for a medical journal in 2011.

Despite the worrying evidence, the CDC stressed that "the science is very clear to date that the Zika virus is primarily transmitted to people through the bite of an infected mosquito,” adding that efforts should be put into preventing that kind of transmission.

However, some scientists urge not to be skeptical about the chances of the illness to be sexually transmitted.Two cases “are not really enough to warrant a large public health recommendation from the CDC. But it’s provocative, so someone else could recommend it. And it certainly should be studied,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chief of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical.  - RT.

Zika in Texas? 'We have the perfect storm to allow virus to flourish' 

 When Dr Peter Hotez hears experts assert that Zika is unlikely to spread significantly in the US, his response is: go to the Houston’s Fifth Ward and look around.
Photograph: Tom Dart for the Guardian

Dr Peter Hotez gestured at three tyres dumped on the weed-ravaged, litter-strewn roadside by a boarded-up house on Worms Street.

To Hotez they were more than an eyesore – they signified a potential health hazard, the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes that could spread the Zika virus.

The World Health Organisation has warned that the virus is spreading “explosively” through the Americas, with one estimate that there could be as many as 4m infections across the continent over the next year.

At a special briefing in Geneva on Thursday, Margaret Chan, the WHO director general warned it was a threat of “alarming proportions”. Hotez, an eminent scientist and researcher who is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, agrees.

“I’m quite convinced it’s going to be all over the Caribbean within the next few weeks. And then, where’s next?” he said. “Where we’re standing here in the Gulf Coast … Pretty much all of the Gulf Coast cities are vulnerable but Houston is the largest.”

It is less than 15 minutes’ drive from Hotez’s office in the world’s biggest medical complex to the Fifth Ward, a historic, mostly African American quarter just north-east of downtown Houston.

When he hears experts assert that Zika is unlikely to spread significantly in the US, his response is: go to the Fifth Ward and look around.

Broken window screens lie discarded a few feet away from the tyres. A block away, more tyres, a sofa, armchairs, drawers and a colorful variety of other household waste were piled in the street. A rooster crowed somewhere, barely audible above the drone of the traffic barrelling through on the nearby knot of elevated freeways. It was a grey, damp morning. The streets had not yet fully drained from the overnight rain. In some sodden nooks it seemed doubtful they ever would.

“I could show you dozens of neighborhoods like this in south-east Texas, along the Gulf Coast,” said Hotez. “What we have is dilapidated housing, inadequate or absent window screens, standing water, poor drainage, which are going to allow the mosquitoes to breed, and then the classic piece to this is the discarded tyres along the side of the road. Aedes mosquitoes love discarded tyres filled with water.”

Reports emerged this week that two people in Virginia and Arkansas who had traveled abroad had tested positive for the virus, which is spread when infected mosquitoes bite people. The most common symptoms are mild but it can be transmitted from pregnant mothers to babies.  - The Guardian.

‘I ached and my hands felt frozen’: A Zika virus victim’s tale 

Jade Coelho de MirandaPhoto: Carlos Augusto

Contracting the Zika virus is as scary as it sounds, according to 21-year-old Brazilian college student Jade Coelho de Miranda, who was infected last year. She told The Post about her first-hand experience with the virus and its effect on her hometown of Rio de Janeiro, the epicenter of the outbreak.

Last October, I frequently hung around a large park at my college, the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. I didn’t think much of all the mosquitoes in the area — until I broke out in a rash that covered my entire body.

I was scared.

I told my dad, and soon found myself at a hospital, where they did multiple tests that confirmed I had contracted the Zika virus.

For the next week, I had severe muscle pain and a fever, two of the most common side effects of the infection caused by Aedes mosquito bites.

My whole body felt immobilized. I started having difficulty moving my hands — feeling like they were frozen. My eyes became irritated, too.

It was a terrible week. I couldn’t go out, exercise or do anything because the joint pain was so strong.

My pain was bad, but it was nothing compared to my father’s.

He was diagnosed a few days after me. His case was worse because it developed into a rare disease called Guillain-Barré syndrome, causing him to experience weakness in his legs and upper body.

He said he had pins-and-needles sensations in his fingers, toes, ankles and wrists for three months.

Cases like my dad’s worry me the most, as Zika has a different effect on each person. Some people might develop a rare syndrome like he did.

Right now, a lot of people in Brazil are afraid of Zika, especially pregnant women. Each week, there are more cases of newborn children being diagnosed with microcephaly, a birth defect that causes smaller skulls and brains.

There are some things we can do to prevent the Zika virus from spreading — wear bug spray, cover exposed skin, close domestic water tanks to prevent mosquitoes from getting in and dispose of garbage in a timely fashion.

I heard that soon, Americans may experience an outbreak. It is important that if you feel any of the symptoms I described, you go see a doctor immediately. Staying home and resting were essential to me feeling better.

While I’m not pleased that Zika is spreading, I am more hopeful that something will change now that it has garnered international attention.

Maybe now, authorities will be motivated to research the virus and finally be able to provide a solution for this disease.
We need a vaccine now.

We need a cure now — before it gets worse. - New York Post.