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UN health chief: Zika virus is ‘spreading explosively’ WHO: Zika virus ‘spreading explosively,’ ‘level of alarm extremely high’
(about 1 hour later)
GENEVA — Declaring that the Zika virus is “spreading explosively,” chief of the World Health Organization announced that it will hold an emergency meeting of independent experts on Monday to decide if the virus outbreak should be declared an international health emergency. The World Health Organization announced Thursday that it will convene an emergency meeting to try to find ways to stop the transmission of the Zika virus — which officials said is "spreading explosively" across the Americas.
At a special meeting Thursday in Geneva, WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said the virus — which has been linked to birth defects and neurological problems — is becoming more of a threat. "The level of alarm is extremely high, as is the level of uncertainty. Questions abound. We need to get some answers quickly, " Margaret Chan, the director-general of the WHO, said in Geneva in a briefing to member countries.
Chan said although there was no definitive proof that the Zika virus was responsible for a spike in the number of babies being born with abnormally small heads in Brazil, “the level of alarm is extremely high.” She also noted a possible relationship between Zika infection and Guillain-Barre syndrome, which can cause temporary paralysis. Chan said that the situation today is dramatically different from last year because of the multiplying number of cases and the severity of the symptoms and that "the level of alarm is extremely high."
“The possible links, only recently suspected, have rapidly changed the risk profile of Zika from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions. The increased incidence of microcephaly is particularly alarming, as it places a heart-breaking burden on families and communities,” Chan said. [Why the United States is so vulnerable to the alarming spread of Zika virus]
The Zika virus was first detected in 1947 and for decades only caused mild disease, but Chan noted that “the situation today is dramatically different.” According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the Zika virus is now in more than 20 countries, mostly in Central and South America. It is spread by the Aedes mosquito, which also spreads dengue and yellow fever. Health officials said 23 countries are affected by mosquitoes that are spreading the virus locally. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the United States has 31 confirmed cases in 11 states and the District of Columbia. All are travel-related, the CDC's Lyle Petersen said, and "this number is increasing rapidly." The country also has 20 additional cases because of local transmission in U.S. territories — 19 in Puerto Rico and one in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
WHO called the special session in part to convey its concern about an illness that has sown fear among many would-be mothers, who have responded by covering themselves head-to-toe in clothing in largely tropical Brazil or putting on many coats of insect repellent. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/health-science/world-health-organization-explains-the-zika-virus/2016/01/27/19b07ec2-c4e4-11e5-b933-31c93021392a_video.html
Chan cited four main reasons why WHO was “deeply concerned” about Zika: The possible link to birth defects and brain syndromes, the prospect of further spread, a lack of immunity among people living in the newly affected areas and the absence of vaccines, treatments or quick diagnostic tests for the virus. Brazil is the epicenter of Zika, and public health officials are investigating a link between the virus and a rare brain defect called microcephaly in infants, as well as a nervous system syndrome known as Guillain-Barré that can lead to paralysis.
Declaring a global emergency is akin to an international SOS signal and usually brings more money and action to address an outbreak. The last such emergency was announced for the devastating 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which eventually ending up killing over 11,000 people. Polio was declared a similar emergency the year before. During a briefing to the WHO executive board on Thursday, Brazil’s health minister, Claudio Maierovitch, said the country is investigating 12 confirmed deaths of babies born with microcephaly for potential linkage with Zika virus infection. The country has more than 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly. Some of those have turned out not to be microcephaly, but many of them have been confirmed through ultrasound, he said. He did not provide a figure. Pregnant women who tested positive for the Zika virus have had a rash and fever during the “first and second parts of their pregnancy,” he said.
Still, convening an emergency committee does not guarantee that a global emergency will be declared — WHO has held 10 such meetings to assess the Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome coronavirus and no emergency has been announced. [FAQ: Zika’s alarming spread -- More than a million infected with virus globally, a dozen in U.S.]
One reason the U.N. health agency may be examining the Zika virus so quickly is because WHO was criticized for its slow response to Ebola; nearly 1,000 people had died before the agency declared it to an international emergency. The Associated Press found that senior agency officials resisted the Ebola declaration for two months, citing political and economic reasons. Several countries, such as El Salvador, have been so shaken by the reports that they have taken extreme measures by advising women of childbearing age to wait six months to two years before trying to become pregnant. Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general of the WHO, said the group's position is that women who are pregnant should engage in "an abundance of caution" to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.
Marcos Espinal, WHO’s director of infectious diseases in the Americas region, said Brazil is conducting studies to determine if there is scientific evidence that Zika virus causes birth defects and neurological problems. He said they are hopeful Brazil may have data to share in a couple of months.  
Brazil’s Zika outbreak and the spike in microcephaly cases among babies have been concentrated in the poor and underdeveloped northeast of the country, though the prosperous southeast, where Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are located, are the second hardest-hit region. Rio de Janeiro is of special concern, since it will host the Aug. 5-21 Summer Olympic games that are expected to be attended by millions from around the world. Marcos Espinal, director of communicable diseases and health analysis for the Pan American Health Organization, said Zika is likely to spread to the same areas where dengue exists and predicted that “we can expect 3 to 4 million cases of Zika virus disease.”
Earlier this week, officials in Rio ramped up their fight against the mosquitoes that spread Zika, dispatching a team of fumigators to the Sambadrome, where the city’s Carnival parades will take place next month. That reach includes parts of the southern United States, according to a map he presented at the briefing.
There is no specific treatment or vaccine for Zika. The virus is related to dengue, and scientists have struggled for years to develop a dengue vaccine; the first such shot made by Sanofi Pasteur was licensed last year in Brazil. The WHO said the reason Zika appears to be spreading so rapidly is two-fold: One, because it is a new disease to the region, the population does not have immunity and two, the Zika virus is primarily transmitted by a mosquito species known as A. aegypti, which lives in every country in North and South America except for Canada and Chile.
___ WHO officials said that this type of mosquito also has been simultaneously carrying a host of other viruses — dengue, Chikungunya, yellow fever, West Nile — to those regions in recent years. Among the hypotheses scientists are looking are whether the recent severe reactions may be related to co-infection with Zika and another virus, or previous exposure to one.
Cheng reported from London. https://twitter.com/WHO/status/692689472891260928
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Aylward said that some of the women who gave birth to children with microcephaly had been tested and some of them had other infections and some did not.
"We don't have an answer as to what is actually going on," he said.
Part of the challenge with Zika is that it is often "silent" with up to 75 percent of patients who are infected having no symptoms, said Sylvain Aldighieri, who works in epidemic alert and response for the WHO/PAHO. "We have big gaps in terms of confirmation of the real situation."
[Zika: CDC issues interim guidelines for testing infants]
Representatives from several countries raised concerns about whether we’re seeing a potentially more virulent mutated virus in the Americas, but WHO officials said that tests so far show that it’s “very similar” to what was circulating in the Pacific region several years ago.
https://twitter.com/WHO/status/692688757695385600
WHO officials that better diagnostic tests are in the works as well as possible antiviral therapies and vaccines but that any of these could take months to develop. Meanwhile, efforts are focused on controlling the spread of the virus by eliminating mosquito populations.  In some countries health officials have been going door to door to spray for mosquito breeding grounds and have launched public education campaigns to urge people to wear repellant clothing or use sprays. In a controversial experiment, a British company has announced it would release genetically modified mosquitoes whose larvae die to see if they can help stop the spread of the virus.
The WHO's Chan urged “every community, every family and individual” to do their part by doing things like taking care not to leave stagnant collections of water on their properties and emphasized that every person in the world could be vulnerable to the virus.
“The mosquito is ubiquitous,” she said. “You don’t need to travel to get the disease.”
The WHO emergency session on Zika is scheduled to take place on Monday.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/health-science/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-zika-virus/2016/01/19/78507144-bef9-11e5-98c8-7fab78677d51_video.html
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FAQ: Zika’s alarming spread -- More than a million infected with virus globally, a dozen in U.S. 
Zika: CDC issues interim guidelines for testing infants
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