Health officials issue Africa alert over spread of mosquito-borne baby virus

THE Zika virus linked to a microcephaly outbreak in Latin America could spread to Africa and Asia, the World Health Organisation has warned as it launches a global response unit to handle the growing crisis.

The WHO declared an international public health emergency due to Zika’s link to thousands of recent birth defects in Brazil.

Zika is a devastating condition in which a baby is born with an abnormally small head and brain.

Top WHO official Anthony Costello said yesterday that the unit would provide “a formal response using all the lessons we’ve learned from the Ebola crisis”.

“The reason it’s a global concern is that we are worried that this could also spread back to other areas of the world where the population may not be immune,” Costello said in Geneva.

“And we know that the mosquitos that carry Zika virus – if that association is confirmed – are present . . . through Africa, parts of southern Europe and many parts of Asia, particularly South Asia.”

Costello said the WHO was drafting guidelines for pregnant women and mustering experts to work on a definition of microcephaly, including a standardised physical check of babies.

Meanwhile, a Dutch organisation has launched an international effort offering pregnant women infected with the Zika virus free pills to trigger an abortion, aiming to halt any rush towards unsafe terminations.

“The Zika virus is now spreading to most of the countries where abortion is very restricted,” Women on Web founder Rebecca Gomperts said.

“We are extremely worried that this might cause increasing unsafe abortions,” Gomperts said. “We really care about women’s health and lives and we want to make sure that women have access to a good medical abortion.”

A “medical abortion” is a combination of two different pills to trigger a non-surgical termination and can be used up to the 12th week of pregnancy.

Women on Web was set up in 2005 to support access to safe abortions around the world, and answers about 10 000 e-mails a month from women seeking advice on a variety of issues.

Brazil, which has become the worst-affected country with about 4 000 suspected cases of microcephaly, is also the world’s largest Catholic country by population and places tight restrictions on abortion.

Brazilian authorities already intercept any packages which contain pills for a medical abortion.