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Edmond Sun With Memorial Day and summer travel coming up, it's time to get serious about Zika Edmond Sun Ahh, Memorial Day! For generations of Americans the holiday has marked the beginning of the season of sunscreen, barbecues and chlorine. It's when you start putting sticky notes all over the guidebooks for that exotic trip abroad. And when you start ... Preparations for Zika are slowArkansas Online Congress leaves town with no Zika resolutionReading Eagle CDC chief: 'Three months in an epidemic is an eternity'MSNBC ATTN -News-Medical.net -Milwaukee Courier Weekly Newspaper -WUSF News all 25 news articles » Google

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Puerto Rico could see "hundreds of thousands of cases of Zika virus." Officials also said the rest of the country needs to be prepared for possible outbreaks. (April 11)

Brazilian health authorities confirmed on Thursday a case of transmission of Zika through a transfusion of blood from a donor who had been infected with the mosquito-borne virus that is spreading rapidly through the Americas. The health department of Campinas, an industrial city near Sao Paulo, said a man with gunshot wounds became infected with Zika after multiple blood transfusions in April 2015. Officials said they determined that one of the people whose donated blood was used in the transfusion had been infected with Zika. Zika is usually contracted via mosquito bites, so transmission of the illness through blood transfusions adds another concern to efforts to contain the outbreak. Some countries have tightened procedures for blood donations, to protect blood supplies. Zika has been reported in 30 countries since it first appeared in the Americas last year in Brazil, where it has been linked to thousands of babies being born with microcephaly. This is a condition where infants have abnormally small heads and often have underdeveloped brains. Campinas health officials said the donor of the contaminated blood developed symptoms afterwards that were mistaken for dengue, a virus borne by the same mosquito that transmits Zika. A blood test that showed he had Zika was not completed until Jan. 28 this year. The blood center at the University of Campinas said a second person who donated blood in May developed symptoms and tested positive for Zika, though the recipient of the contaminated blood has not developed symptoms of the virus. Brazil's Health Ministry said the first recipient died of his wounds and not from the Zika infection. It said it was reinforcing instructions to blood banks that people infected with Zika or dengue not be permitted to donate blood for 30 days after full recovery from the active stage of Zika infection. On Tuesday, the American Red Cross urged prospective donors who have visited Zika outbreak zones to wait at least 28 days before giving blood, but said the risk of transmitting the virus through blood donations was "extremely" low in the continental United States. The agency asked donors who give blood and subsequently develop symptoms consistent with Zika within 14 days to notify the Red Cross so the product can be quarantined. Also causing concern is the possibility of transmission through sexual contact. Health officials in Texas reported on Tuesday that a person in Dallas became infected after having sex with another person who had traveled in Venezuela, where the virus is circulating. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Daniel Flynn, Will Dunham and Frances Kerry) http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-zika-brazil-blood-idUSKCN0VD22N?utm_source=twitter

A leading infectious disease doctor is warning that not only is the virus sexually transmitted but that it could affect blood donations New concerns have emerged over the widespread Zika epidemic as it's feared the virus can be spread through sex and can impact blood donations. Scientists probing the rapid onslaught of the virus claim pregnant women can catch it through unprotected sex. At least one UK resident was warned not to have sex without a condom after contracting the virus. Leading infectious diseases expert Dr Amesh Adalja at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center says it has been well documented and part of that research was focused in the UK. And there's fresh concerns that it could end up contaminating emergency blood supplies . Only one in five people show symptoms of the disease and don't seek medical treatment - meaning Zika is a benign illness for the vast majority of patients. Read more: Was Zika outbreak caused by release of genetically modified mosquitoes in Brazil? Dr Amesh A. Adalja is a leading infectious disease researcher at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center But this opens up major concerns for doctors worried that the disease can spread person to person - and infect unborn babies - without a mosquito bite. Dr Adalja said: "There have been cases of sexual transmission of Zika from male to female and, if the woman is pregnant , the virus could theoretically pass to the gestating fetus. There are fears that the virus could end up contaminating emergency blood supplies "At least one case report of a sexual transmission event that spread Zika in the medical literature. "It involved a male scientist who was in Senegal in 2008 and then traveled home to Colorado. "Both he and his wife developed Zika virus, though she had not traveled to any Zika prevalent areas but had engaged in sexual intercourse. "Interestingly, his symptoms included having blood in his semen (hematospermia). Getty The Zika virus can be transmitted through unprotected sex "Hematospermia was also reported in a Tahitian patient in 2013 and the Zika virus was subsequently isolated from the semen. "The US CDC has not made a recommendation regarding sexual transmission to pregnant women however, as a precaution, Public Health England has recommended condom use in a male patient returning from Zika-affected areas for 28 days and for 6 months in those with confirmed Zika. "More evidence of sexual transmission including its likelihood and its timeframe are needed." James Breeden Six young babies with microcephaly and their parents wait to be seen by medics in Brazil Millions of British people visit the 24 infected countries each year and the Government is warning pregnant women not to travel. However, these new revelations are worrying not only for pregnant women but for millions of people who rely on blood donations. Speaking exclusively to Mirror Online , Dr Adalja, added that there are very real concerns over blood transfusions. He added: "There is also concern for the virus being transmitted via blood transfusion. "The UK is not home to Aedes mosquitoes but still has to be prepared to identify and diagnose infected travelers. Getty Dr. Angela Rocha examines Ludmilla Hadassa Dias de Vasconcelos "The risk of contracting Zika via a blood transfusion was established via screening asymptomatic donors in French Polynesia a few years ago and there has been at least one report of the virus being acquired in this manner. "The blood banking industry and regulatory agencies are rapidly developing donor guidance to minimize this risk." Dr Adalja says any real vaccine offering could be at least 10 years off and British doctors have to be prepared for the real possibility that the virus could spread exponentially in the UK. He added: "Vaccine development is generally measured on the scale of years. Getty A health care employee examines blood infected with the Zika virus in a health centre in Caracas, Venezuela "However, there are a few extant vaccines that may be able to reconfigured for Zika allowing the proceed to be accelerated but it will still be some time before vaccine is widely available. "It usually takes about a decade to fully commercialize a novel vaccine. "There are many new technologies that have been developed that may be able to accelerate the development and there are emergency use provisions facilitating human use earlier in clinical development than usual. "This acceleration will be dependent on how easy it is to devise a vaccine against Zika which will include deciding what part of the virus to target to stimulate protective immunity while not triggering autoimmune reactions, which may be an issue given the cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome that have been linked to Zika. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva has declared an emergency "However, once the vaccine development, safety, efficacy, storage and dosing studies all take time so it is hard to put an exact timeline on to a novel vaccine." Five cases of Zika virus have been diagnosed in UK travellers as part of this outbreak. There has only been one additional case of Zika virus infection diagnosed in the UK to date. Getty David Henrique Ferreira, 5 months, who was born with microcephaly which is believed to be linked to Zika This case was diagnosed in 2014 following travel to the Cook Islands and is not part of the ongoing outbreak in South and Central America and the Caribbean. Almost 1.4 million UK residents travelled to South and Central America and the Caribbean on average each year between 2010 and 2014. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/fears-zika-virus-can-spread-7292653