The Zika virus has been reported in 23 countries and territories in the Americas. Brazil is the hardest hit nation so far with more than 1 million infections. In the continental U.S. the 35 known cases of Zika have been the result of people who have traveled to infected areas and returned to the U.S. No local mosquito-borne transmission has been reported.
Globalization has changed the rapid nature in which viruses spread. To that end, broad calls for action have been engaged. The World Health Organization has declared Zika an international health crisis, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared it a Level 1 alert - the highest activation. Earlier this week, President Obama asked Congress to allocate $1.8 billion in emergency finding to vaccine research, surveillance and rapid response programs. The request also includes foreign aid to countries most impacted by Zika.
While the virus is not known to be deadly and most people who contact it will have no symptoms at all, pregnant women are most at risk. To protect their babies, the CDC is warning pregnant women not to travel to areas affected by the virus. There is no vaccine to prevent the disease.
The New York Times yesterday provided an interesting detailed history of the virus' path since its discovery in 1947, and new information about the virus is emerging every day. Just yesterday, CDC Director Thomas Frieden told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the CDC has uncovered new evidence supporting the link between Zika and microcephaly, a birth defect in which infants are born with unusually small heads and incomplete brain development.
In this new 1:2:1 podcast I spoke with Stanford infectious disease expert Yvonne Maldonado, MD, about Zika and the latest on the virus. She's a professor of pediatrics at the school of medicine and the chief of pediatric infectious disease at Stanford Children's Health.
Previously: Zika outbreak shares key traits with Ebola crisis, Stanford experts point out
