A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Friday, January 29, 2016
Spread of Zika alarming, 4 million cases a possibility: WHO
Gleyce Kelly embraces her daughter Maria Geovana, who has microcephaly, in Recife, Brazil, January 25, 2016.
BY TOM MILES AND STEPHANIE NEBEHAY-Fri Jan 29, 2016
The Zika virus, linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in
Brazil, is "spreading explosively" and could infect as many as 4
million people in the Americas, the World Health Organization (WHO) said
on Thursday.
Director-General Margaret Chan told members of the U.N. health agency's
executive board the spread of the mosquito-borne disease had gone from a
mild threat to one of alarming proportions. The WHO would convene an
emergency meeting on Monday to help determine its response, she said.
"The level of alarm is extremely high," Chan told the Geneva gathering.
"Last year, the virus was detected in the Americas, where it is now
spreading explosively. As of today, cases have been reported in 23
countries and territories in the region," Chan said, promising quick
action from the WHO.
The agency was criticized last year for reacting too slowly to West
Africa's Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 10,000 people, and it
promised to cut its response time.
"We are not going to wait for the science to tell us there is a link
(with birth defects). We need to take actions now," Chan said, referring
to the condition called microcephaly in which babies are born with
abnormally small heads and brains that have not developed properly.
There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is like dengue and
causes mild fever, rash and red eyes. An estimated 80 percent of people
infected have no symptoms. Much of the effort against the illness
focuses on protecting people from mosquitoes and reducing mosquito
populations.
Developing a safe and effective vaccine could take a year, WHO Assistant
Director Bruce Aylward said, and it would take six to nine months just
to confirm whether Zika is the actual cause of the birth defects, or if
the two are just associated.
"In the area of vaccines, I do know that there has been some work done
by some groups looking at the feasibility of a Zika virus vaccine. Now
something like that, as people know, is going to be a 12-month-plus time
frame," he said.