New Zika response strategy to focus on preventing, managing medical complications – UN health agency

The United Nations health agency has issued a revised strategic response plan for the next one and a half years to combat the transmission of the Zika virus, which has now spread to 60 countries.

This Zika Strategic Response Plan -Revised for July 2016 to December 2017, comprises of the Strategic Response Framework and Joint Operations Plan, and has been developed to guide the international response and joint actions against Zika virus infection, its complications and consequences.

It provides the basis for coordination and collaboration with partners so that countries’ preparedness and response capacities are supported to the fullest extent possible.

Read more: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/246091/1/WHO-ZIKV-SRF-16.3-eng.pdf?ua=1&ua=1

Sexual Transmission Is Just the Latest Zika Surprise

Information about the Zika virus now “spreading explosively" through the Americas seems to be changing every day and little of it is comforting.

Researchers reported that a Dallas resident contracted the virus during sex, rather than from a mosquito bite, raising new questions about the virus, which has been carefully followed for only a few years.

“This virus is very frightening,” said Didier Musso, who studied a 2013-2014 outbreak of Zika on the French Polynesian islands.

Many details about the virus remain mysterious, including its evolution, the likelihood of sexual transmission, and whether this risk will complicate the fight against it.

“It’s a very new disease. It would be possible to answer all the questions in 10 years, but not today,” said Musso, director of the emerging infectious disease unit at the Institut Louis Malardé in Tahiti, which is in French Polynesia.

Though Zika was first discovered in 1947 in Uganda, only 14 human cases have been described in Africa and in Southeast Asia, where it apparently also spread to travelers.

Read more: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160203-zika-sexual-transmission-virus-science/