Colorado Researchers Lead Efforts To Combat Zika Virus
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4)- Researchers in Colorado are helping in the fight against the Zika virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention office in Fort Collins has led U.S. efforts to combat the virus since 2007.
The facility focuses on illnesses carried by fleas and ticks.
The Zika virus is usually spread through mosquito bites, but investigators have been exploring the possibility the virus also can be spread through sex. There was report of a Colorado researcher who caught the virus overseas and apparently spread it to his wife back home in 2008, and it was found in one man's semen in Tahiti.
In the epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean, the main villain identified so far is called Aedes aegypti - a species of mosquito that spreads other tropical diseases, including chikungunya and dengue fever. It is found in the southern United States, though no mosquito-borne transmission has been reported in the continental United States to date.
The World Health Organization on Monday declared a global emergency over the rapidly spreading Zika virus, saying it is an "extraordinary event" that poses a threat to the rest of the world. The declaration was made after an emergency meeting of independent experts called in response to a spike in babies born with brain defects and abnormally small heads in Brazil since the virus was first found there last year. Officials in French Polynesia also documented a connection between Zika and neurological complications when the virus was spreading there two years ago, at the same time as dengue fever.