Zika outbreak no longer a world public health emergency

a. SARS

b. Avian Flu

c. H1N1

d. Zika

 

The World Health Organisation on 18th Nov 2016 announced that the Zika virus outbreak linked to deformities in babies’ heads and brains no longer poses an international public health emergency

• However, the epidemic remains a big challenge
• Brazil is the epicentre of the outbreak and it has refused to downgrade the risk
• Experts have also opposed the world body’s decision
• Zika causes mild symptoms in most people, but pregnant women with virus risk were giving birth to babies with microcephaly- a deformation leading to abnormalities of small brains and heads
• It can also cause a rare adult onset neurological problems such as Guillain Barre Syndrome which can result in paralysis and death
• In the outbreak that began in 2015, more than 1.5 million people have been infected by Zika, mainly in Brazil according to the WHO
• The UN global health agency had declared Zika an international public health emergency in February 2016
• Researchers had warned that at least 2.6 billion people over a third of the global population lived in parts of Asia, Africa and the Pacific where Zika could gain a new foothold with 1.2 billion Indians at risk
• Brazil on 18th Nov said that it would continue to treat the outbreak as an emergency
• Zika has been detected in 73 nations worldwide, namely in Latin America and the Caribbean

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