Global Health

reuters.com - by ALEXANDRA ULMER AND CORINA PONS - March 4, 2016

A fetus whose mother likely had the Zika virus suffered the rare congenital defect known as microcephaly and ultimately died, doctors said on Friday, in the first Venezuelan case linking the infection to damage in babies.

The mosquito-borne virus has been linked to thousands of suspected cases of microcephaly in Brazil, and a recent study has suggested the virus may be associated with stillbirths.

The World Health Organization declared Zika an international health emergency on Feb. 1, citing a "strongly suspected" relationship between Zika infection in pregnancy and microcephaly, a condition in which an infant's head is markedly smaller than those of other babies of similar age and gender.

Public health officials say that link is growing stronger with new evidence, but expect it could take years to prove a connection.

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CLICK HERE - Zika First Trimester Infection Linked To Microcephaly Maturín Venezuela

Group Leader, Dr Masafumi Inoue of Agency for Science Technology and Research's (A*STAR) Experimental Therapeutics Centre shows a sample to be tested with the Zika virus diagnostic test kit at their laboratory in Singapore, February 10, 2016. REUTERS/EDGAR SU

CLICK HERE - STUDY - The Lancet - Guillain-Barré Syndrome outbreak associated with Zika virus infection in French Polynesia: a case-control study

reuters.com - by Kate Kelland - February 29, 2016

French scientists say they have proved a link between the Zika virus and a nerve syndrome called Guillain-Barre, suggesting countries hit by the Zika epidemic will see a rise in cases of the serious neurological condition.

Guillain-Barre (GBS) is a rare syndrome in which the body's immune system attacks part of the nervous system. . . .

. . . "The regions which are affected by the Zika virus epidemic are likely to see a significant increase in the number of patients with serious neurological complications, and when possible, should increase the capacity of health-care facilities to receive patients needing intensive care."

Improving local health workers’ access to real-time health information will enable a faster and better response to global health threats. / Neil Brandvold, USAID

medium.com/usaid-2030 - by Ann Mei Chang - February 11, 2016

. . . The next generation of health information systems have to not only quickly and accurately deliver the necessary information to healthcare workers, but they need to be able to communicate with each other. The wide range of people involved in combating epidemics such as Ebola need to be able to efficiently and seamlessly share information to ensure coordinated responses and better resource distribution. . . .

. . . To get the conversation started, USAID put out a call for innovative concepts for improving interoperability within health information systems in the developing world. We gathered over 40 organizations for a three-day co-creation workshop in Washington, D.C. in November. Almost 100 experts — including donors, engineers, software developers and implementers in the field — arrived to co-design a solution. . . .

Miriam Araujo holds her son Lucas, who was born with microcephaly, in Sao Jose dos Cordeiros, Brazil.

Researchers are beginning to tease out the environmental factors that play a role in helping the virus to spread.

theatlantic.com - by Greg Mercer - February 24, 2016

Last year, a team of researchers made a surprising discovery: Aedis aegypti mosquitoes—the species that spreads West Nile Virus, dengue, chickungunya and, most recently, Zika—were living year-round in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. In a paper published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the researchers wrote that the mosquitoes had been living in the area since at least 2011, biting and reproducing in the summer months and likely riding out the winter underground. Previously, scientists had believed that the mosquitoes couldn’t survive year-round anyplace north of South Carolina.