The best experts from the United States and Brazil has already joint their hands in carrying out research in order to find out a vaccine against Zika virus, which has been widely spread in the Americas, Latin America and many other areas these days.
According to Marcelo Castro – the Health Minister of Brazil, these professionals would collect their knowledge, their resources within the two-day meeting and share together so as to work out the best ways to protect people against Zika virus, and also to wipe out the mosquito which spreads that kind of virus.
Brazil, the first place in the Americas where Zika virus appeared last year, is making every effort to control the epidemic and prevent it from spreading, due to the bad impact of it on the 2016 Olympic Games, which will be held in Rio de Janiero in August. That virus outbreak might lessen the number of audiences of the upcoming Olympic. What’s more, the officials have advised travellers who are in pregnant time not to enter the Zika-infected areas.
There occurred meetings between researchers from C.D.C, the U.S National Institutes of Health, professionals from the Food and Drug Administration and the Health and Human Services department and Brazilian counterparts. Paulo Gadelha, head of the Fiocruz public health research center commented that they wanted to co-ordinate efforts of researchers from different countries. There are lots of things to do toward the goal of producing a vaccine.
However, there has been also the need of determining whether Zika virus causes birth defects, which lead to tiny heads and brain damage on babies in Brazil or not. According to WHO, there is a serious possibility of the connection between Zika virus and microcephaly will be made clear within weeks.
Whereas that link has not been proved yet, the Brazilian authorities assure that the cause of microcephaly is Zika virus, as almost microcephaly cases have happened in areas where Zika has hardest affected. The Health Ministry of Brazil announced that almost all of 508 cases of microcephaly in that country might be linked to Zika epidemic.
There is estimated that 1.5 million Brazillian people has been infected by Zika virus. Mr. Castro indicated that Brazil has been conducting the report of Zika virus mandatory, which has not been done before because of the lack of equipment and methods to test for Zika, hampering the collection of more statistics.
About 500,000 molecular biology kits will be distributed this year to test for Zika virus in 27 labs around Brazil, with an aim to diagnose Zika, hence controlling the outbreak of that virus, Castro stated.
The director General of WHO, Margaret Chan will pay a visit to Brazil next week to hold a meeting with Brazilian health officials and visit mothers whose babies are suffering from microcephaly in a city of that country.