WHO convenes Zika virus emergency meeting

The World Health Organization has convened a meeting of researchers and health officials to determine whether the Zika virus should be declared a global health emergency. The WHO predicts the virus, which may be linked to neurological disorders in babies, could infect as many as 4 million people in the Americas this year. No firm […]

The World Health Organization has convened a meeting of researchers and health officials to determine whether the Zika virus should be declared a global health emergency.
The WHO predicts the virus, which may be linked to neurological disorders in babies, could infect as many as 4 million people in the Americas this year.
No firm link has been established between the Zika virus and microcephaly, a neurological disorder in which babies are born with abnormally small heads. But it is hard to ignore a possible connection between the virus and this brain disorder, given recent events in Brazil.
Nearly 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly have been reported in the country since October, compared with 150 similar cases in 2014.
Zika gets its name from a forest in Uganda where the virus was first identified in 1947.