About 200 Zika cases recorded in Thailand: ministry

BANGKOK - Thailand has recorded about 200 cases of Zika since January, the health ministry said on Tuesday, making it a country with one of the highest numbers of confirmed cases in the region.

It was the first time Thailand's health ministry has confirmed the number of Zika cases this year.

The announcement comes a day after health experts called on Thailand to be more transparent in reporting the Zika threat to the public after health officials played down risks from rising infections of the mosquito-borne virus.

Health officials have expressed concern that disclosing information on Zika, which is linked to serious birth defects, would damage Thailand's lucrative tourism industry.

"Since January, we have recorded about 200 cases and over the past three weeks, we have confirmed an average of 20 new cases per week," Ministry of Public Health spokesman Suwannachai Wattanayingcharoenchai told Reuters.

"The number of cases is stable," he said, without giving further details.

Island city-state Singapore reported its first locally infected Zika patient on Aug. 27 and since then, the number of reported infections has soared to more than 300.

Malaysia and the Philippines have also reported cases.

The virus, which is affecting large parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, has been circulating in Asia for years.

The lineage of the virus circulating in Asia is different to the one in the Americas, researchers say. The level of population immunity to the lineage of Zika in Asia remains unknown, according to the World Health Organization.

Suwannachai urged the public not to panic and reiterated a message aimed at reassuring tourists.

"People shouldn't be scared to visit provinces affected by the Zika virus," Suwannachai said.

Zika infections in pregnant women have been shown to cause microcephaly - a severe birth defect in which the head and brain are undersized - as well as other brain abnormalities.

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last year in Brazil, which has since confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly.

Thailand has found no cases of microcephaly linked to Zika and it is monitoring about two dozen pregnant woman and about six who have given birth with no complications, the health ministry said.

In adults, Zika infections have also been linked to a rare neurological syndrome known as Guillain-Barre, as well as other neurological disorders.

The virus was first identified in Uganda in 1947.

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Mosquito repellent sales surge in Brazil amid Zika outbreak

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - Mosquito-borne viruses including Zika, which is feared to cause brain damage in babies, have driven a surge in sales of insect repellent in Brazil, manufacturers say.

The Brazilian insect repellent sector saw sales rise to a record $54 million in 2015 up from $36 million a year earlier, newspaper O Globo said on Sunday, citing a study by the Nielsen consumer research firm.

One manufacturer, Osler, told AFP sales increased 800 percent in the December 2015-January 2016 period, year-on-year.

Pharmacies meanwhile said they were starting to sell out of some repellents.

Brazil is the country worst affected by the outbreak of Zika, with 1.5 million cases reported last year.

Scientists have linked it to babies born with microcephaly, a condition which causes them to have abnormally small heads.

It has also been linked to Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disease that can cause paralysis in humans.

There is currently no cure or vaccine for Zika, which usually causes little more than a fever and rash in adults.

Instead authorities are focusing on preventive measures, cleaning up potential mosquito breeding grounds and recommending that people use repellent.

Brazil has also suffered from a rise in cases of dengue, another mosquito-borne disease.

Dengue killed 863 people in Brazil in 2015, an increase of more than 82 percent on the previous year, the government said.

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Vulnerable Asia fears Zika outbreak

MUMBAI, India - Densely packed slums, rampant mosquitoes and a history of rapidly spreading infections make Asia particularly vulnerable to the devastating Zika virus, posing a massive challenge for the region, health experts warn.

Thailand confirmed Tuesday that a man contracted the mosquito-borne infection, blamed for a surge in the number of brain-damaged babies in South America, while Indonesia has also reported a domestic case.

The cases in Asia come as top US health authorities confirmed this week a patient in Texas contracted the Zika virus through sexual transmission, fuelling fears the disease may spread rapidly.

Officials in India worry it could be next, noting that the Zika and dengue fever-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito thrives in the high-density communities of its teeming cities, where sanitation is often poor.

"In India particularly there is a great threat of the Zika virus spreading quickly given the presence of the Aedes mosquito and favorable environment," said Om Shrivastav, an infectious diseases specialist.

"It would definitely be a big challenge for Asian countries to control the spread of the virus... considering high population in the region," added Shrivastav, who is based in Mumbai, home to Dharavi, Asia's biggest slum.

More than half of Mumbai's 20 million inhabitants live in slums -- at least one million reside in Dharavi alone -- enduring cramped conditions, poor ventilation and a lack of toilets.

Every summer monsoon, heavy rains lash Mumbai for four months, flooding parts of the city, including the slums' maze of alleyways, which become fertile breeding grounds for mosquitos and lead to a massive spike in tropical diseases.

Soumya Swaminathan, director general of the Indian Council for Medical Research, warned against panicking but said a surge of dengue cases worldwide recently, was a cause for concern.

"(Because of) the way dengue has spread over the last several years across continents and across countries, (and with) Zika being a mosquito borne illness, there is a potential for spread," she told Indian news channel NDTV.

Zika, which was first identified in Uganda in 1947, causes relatively mild flu-like symptoms and a rash.

But the World Health Organization (WHO) said it "strongly suspected" the Zika virus of being responsible for a rapid rise in cases of microcephaly, a condition in which a baby is born with an abnormally small head and brain.

Latin American countries, particularly Brazil, have reported a leap in cases of microcephaly since the Zika outbreak was declared in the region last year.

The UN-body has declared the situation a "public health emergency of international concern" and has created a global Zika response unit to contain the virus.

WHO expert Anthony Costello has stressed there is no reason to believe the crisis would remain limited to Latin America, where 25 countries so far have reported Zika cases.

'PREVENTATIVE MEASURES'

"We know that the mosquitoes that carry Zika virus... are present through most of Africa, parts of southern Europe and many parts of Asia, particularly south Asia," he said.

Eloi Yao, a WHO spokesman in Manila, said there was a "likelihood" that Zika would spread to Asia but described the present risk as "low".

"Right now, we don't want to raise the level of anxiety," he told AFP, noting that Zika had been found in Asian countries before.

The Zika infection was reported in Cambodia in 2010 and the Philippines in 2012, according to WHO.

Asian governments are no strangers to dealing with deadly outbreaks of viruses and could be forgiven if they felt jittery over Zika.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) killed hundreds of people, mostly in China and Hong Kong, when it spread fear across Asia in 2003.

Hong Kong-based virologist Malik Peiris said "there is a danger" that Zika could be confused with dengue fever and other mosquito-borne illnesses, adding governments should carefully track new cases.

"Zika might come in unrecognised, until it's spreading in an alarming rate," Peiris, from Hong Kong University, told AFP.

Last year South Korea declared the official end to a deadly outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that killed 36 people.

When Thailand confirmed its case this week, an official said the Southeast Asian giant had recorded an average of "not more than five cases yearly" since the disease was first confirmed there in 2012.

But he played down fears of a future outbreak in the region, describing all the cases as "one-offs" and insisting there was "no need to panic".

Most Asian governments appear to be taking a similar stance. Pakistan for example described the risk of a Zika outbreak there as "non-significant", but added it was carefully monitoring the situation.

Yao said the WHO was working with countries, including making sure "their environment is clean" while Shrivastav warned against any complacency.

"We need to be very cautious and have to take preventive measures to keep the virus at bay," said the Mumbai-based expert.

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Race for Zika vaccine gathers momentum as virus spreads

Vaccine is seen as months, if not years, away
U.S. CDC activates Zika emergency response center
Geneva-based WHO plans emergency meeting Monday

Companies and scientists are racing to create a Zika vaccine as concern grows over the mosquito-borne virus that has been linked to severe birth defects and is spreading quickly through the Americas.

Zika is now present in 23 countries and territories in the Americas. Brazil, the hardest-hit country, has reported around 3,700 cases of the devastating birth defect called microcephaly that are strongly suspected to be related to Zika.

The Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO), stung by criticism that it reacted too slowly to West Africa's Ebola epidemic, convenes an emergency meeting on Monday to help determine its response to the spread of the virus.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has activated an emergency operations center staffed around the clock to address Zika, agency officials told Reuters.

On Thursday, the WHO said as many as 4 million people in the Americas may become infected by Zika, adding urgency to the research efforts. Vaccine developers made clear a vaccine for widespread public use is at least months, if not years, away.

The closest prospect may be from a consortium including drugmaker Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc that could have a vaccine ready for emergency use before year-end, according to one of its lead developers. Inovio's share price gained more than 15 percent in Friday trading.

Canadian scientist Gary Kobinger told Reuters on Thursday the first stage of testing on humans could begin as early as August. If successful, the vaccine might be used during a public health emergency by October or November, said Kobinger, who helped develop a trial vaccine for the Ebola virus.

Privately owned vaccine developer Hawaii Biotech Inc said it began a formal program to test a Zika vaccine last fall as the virus started to gain traction in Brazil, although it has no timetable yet for clinical trials.

"Right now, we are in the pre-clinical stage, as I suspect everyone is," Chief Executive Officer Dr. Elliot Parks told Reuters.

Another private vaccine developer, Boston-based Replikins Ltd, said it was preparing to start animal studies on a Zika vaccine in the next 10 days. Data from the trials on mice and rabbits would likely be out in the next couple of months, Replikins Chairman Samuel Bogoch told Reuters.

"No one has the $500 million on hand to take it (a vaccine) all the way to human trials. Somewhere along the course we hope to have big pockets join us," Bogoch said.

'FIGHT THE MOSQUITO'

Zika had been viewed as a relatively mild illness until Brazilian health officials identified it as a matter of concern for pregnant women. While a direct causal relationship has not been established, scientists strongly suspect a link between Zika and thousands of children born in Brazil with abnormally small heads, brain defects and impaired vision.

There is no treatment for Zika infection.

Efforts to combat Zika are focused on protecting people from being bitten and on eradicating mosquitoes, a tough task in many parts of Latin America, where people live in poverty and there are plentiful breeding grounds for the insect.

"We do not have a vaccine for Zika yet. The only thing we can do is fight the mosquito," Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said on Friday, reiterating her call for a national eradication effort.

Rousseff said tests for the development of a vaccine would begin next week at the Butantan Institute, one of Brazil's leading biomedical research centers in Sao Paulo.

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke on Friday with Rousseff about the spread of the virus, the White House said.

"The leaders agreed on the importance of collaborative efforts to deepen our knowledge, advance research and accelerate work to develop better vaccines and other technologies to control the virus," the White House said in a statement.

Zika has hit Brazil just as it prepares to host the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 5-21, an event that draws hundreds of thousands of athletes, team officials and spectators. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) assured teams on Friday the Olympics would be safe from Zika, but urged visitors to carefully protect themselves.

U.S. lawmakers have begun to press the Obama administration for details of its response to Zika. At least 31 people in the country have been infected, all of them after travel to affected countries.

The U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is planning a hearing on Zika "very soon," said Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who called the threat posed by the virus to the United States a "big concern."

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said he did not expect the United States to be hit hard like other some countries in South America and the Caribbean.

"We prepare for the possibility of a major outbreak but we believe it is unlikely to happen," Fauci said.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; and Natalie Grover in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Amrutha Penumudi in Bengaluru; Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago, Toni Clarke in Washington, Karolos Grohmann in Berlin, Anthony Boadle in Brasilia, Jeffrey Dastin in New York; Writing by Frances Kerry; Editing by Will Dunham and Lisa Shumaker)

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