WHO warns about Zika virus spreading through the Americas

Here's a new virus to add to your worry list: Zika, a mosquito-born illness from Africa that, according to Brazilian researchers, can cause pregnant women to give birth to babies with microcephaly, or small, underdeveloped brains. Since being found in Brazil in May 2015, the World Health Organization says, Zika has now reached 21 countries in the Americas and Caribbean, and since there is no natural immunity to the virus, it is spreading rapidly in some places. (You can see a map of countries with confirmed cases here.)

There is also a possible link, in rare cases, between Zika and Guillain-Barré syndrome, but in most cases, Zika's symptoms are similar to other viruses spread by the Aedes mosquito, like dengue and chikungunya: fever, mild rash, headache, joint pain, and conjunctivitis. In about 80 percent of cases, there are no symptoms. Given that Brazil alone has seen 4,000 cases of microcephaly since October, though, some countries in the Americas — Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Jamaica — are advising women to delay pregnancy until officials have a better grasp of the disease. There is no vaccine or treatment.

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