Is the world on the verge of an epidemic due to a spreading virus carried by mosquitoes that can deform the human brain?
The state of Hawaii became the latest area to report a case of the untreatable Zika virus, after health officials recently confirmed that a baby born with brain damage at a hospital in Oahu, Hawaii was infected with the disease.
The baby is the first incident of the Zika virus infection in Hawaii, and the second in the United States. An unidentified woman from Texas who traveled to Latin America, where the virus is quite prevalent, was likewise confirmed to have been infected.
Health authorities said the baby got the Zika virus from her mother who had lived until May 2015 in Brazil, where thousands of babies were monitored for brain deformities or damage due to the dangerous virus.
Doctors believe the woman was infected during her early pregnancy, causing the virus to attack the embryo, damaging its developing brain.
The Zika virus, transmitted when a carrier mosquito bites a human being, is believed to be the cause of microcephaly in young children, or the development of an unusually small skull.
Other symptoms of the Zika virus infection include mild fever, joint pain and skin rash. At present, there are no medicines, vaccines or treatments yet for this infection.
Hawaii health officials nevertheless assured that there is no risk yet of transmission or an outbreak of the Zika virus in the state.
Aside from U.S. and Brazil, cases of the Zika virus have also been reported in Yap Island in Micronesia, in Tahiti and other parts of French Polynesia.
Just recently, American health officials issued a travel warning, particularly for pregnant women in the US, against going to 14 countries and territories in the Caribbean and Latin America where Zika cases have been recorded.
