Viet Nam: South steps up preventive measures against dengue fever, Zika virus - Viet Nam according to : Relief Web

Lân said that appropriate agencies should continue to protect pregnant women from the Zika virus to avoid possible birth defects caused by the virus. Last year, the country had 110,876 dengue fever incidences, with 36 people dying from the disease. Since the beginning of this year, 13 cases have tested positive for the Zika virus. Head of the ministry's Preventive Medicine Department, Trần Đắc Phu, said that 219 patients were infected with the Zika virus last year. Most dengue fever cases were in the southern and central regions, with the Central Highlands' provinces seeing the highest increase.




The District of Columbia Department of Forensic Sciences Public Health Laboratory has tested hundreds of people, mainly pregnant women, for the Zika virus since last year. Already, samples taken from two pregnant women, who originally tested negative for the virus, have now tested positive for likely Zika infection. The CDC is treating the patients who tested positive as though they tested positive for the Zika virus out of caution and for monitoring. In pregnant women, the virus has been found to be associated with fetal development issues and can cause birth defects including microcephaly, which is characterized by an abnormally small head. Officials at a Washington D.C. public health lab confirmed to ABC News that they are retesting hundreds of samples from people in the area for Zika virus over concerns about the accuracy of the original test results.

UTMB scientists uncover how Zika virus causes microcephaly

"However, the effect that the Zika virus had on the ability of stem cells to develop into specialized cells differed between donors. The findings are key to unraveling the mysteries of why the Zika virus causes birth defectsA multidisciplinary team from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has uncovered the mechanisms that the Zika virus uses to alter brain development. They focused on the impact of the Asian lineage Zika virus that was involved in the first outbreak in North America in late 2015. The researchers established a method of investigating how Zika alters the production, survival and maturation of brain stem cells using cells donated from three human fetal brains. Recently, the UTMB team found that only the Asian lineage has been linked with microcephaly.



collected by :Sandra Alex
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