Nine months after announcing the Zika epidemic an external emergency , the World Health Organization haslifted the declaration . This means that the disease , which has been connect to various neurologic and developmental conditions such as microcephaly and Guillain - Barré syndrome , is no longer considered an emergency .
Now , this does n’t think of that the menace of Zika has diminished . On the contrary , this latest announcement is effectively an acknowledgement that this virus is in fact here to detain . cleaning lady and child in Brazil are still being infected , and the threat of the disease scatter , especially throughout North America , remain . However , the declaration stand for that there will now be a change in how the United Nations dispense with the situation , shifting toward more long - term management strategies .
While the virus was identified almost 70 years ago , it was only last yearwhen“an extraordinary cluster of microcephaly and other neurological disorders [ were ] report in Brazil , follow a similar clustering in French Polynesia . ” This is when the World Health Organization realized that the disease had become a major public wellness issue and declare an outside hand brake . Since then , the virus has been reported in almost 30 countries worldwide , and there have beenat least 2,100 casesof neurological deformity in Brazil alone .
Initially , the link between the Zika virus , which is spread through the bite of an infectedAedesspecies of mosquito , and microcephaly was just anecdotal . But conceive the strange cluster of cases in Brazil and the discovery of a similar pattern in Gallic Polynesia beforehand , scientists get down to progress up a picture of how the computer virus leads to this condition . finally , the CDC announcedthat there was enough grounds to confirm the connection . It is now thought that the virus has further impacts , including being linkedto another neurologic condition , Guillain - Barré syndrome .
There have been acute crusade to develop a vaccine due to the dramatic conditions consort with the virus , its power to stay on in the body for extended periods of time , and grounds suggest that it can be spread sexually . These efforts will continue , as the read/write head of the WHO emergency committeeDr David Heymann saidthat the virus continues to pose a “ significant and abiding ” threat .
Efforts will uphold to try and forbid , or at least limit , the continued spread of Zika throughout the Caribbean , Latin America , and further abroad .
