The Daily Telegraph has reported that the UK government is advising the approximately 50,000 British holidaymakers currently in Florida should avoid unprotected sex for the rest of the summer holidays because of the risk from Zika virus. An outbreak of four mosquito-transmitted cases yesterday prompted Public Health England (PHE) to advise pregnant women to consider postponing non-essential travel to the southern US state. But for the large numbers of British tourists already there, the presence of the virus means that they should refrain from sex without a condom for eight weeks, even if neither partner has symptoms of the disease and there is no prospect of a pregnancy. PHE advises that males returning from a Zika-affected area who show symptoms of the virus, which can include a rash, it...

Defending Olympic tennis champions Bob and Mike Bryan have pulled out of the Rio Olympics less than a week before the opening ceremony citing health concerns over the Zika virus. The IB Times reported the following athletes have also pulled out of the Rio Olympics. Rory McIlroy (Golf), Vijay Singh (Golf), Thomas Berdych (Tennis), Adam Scott (Golf), Louis Oosthuizen (Golf), Shane Lowry (Golf),  Charl Schwartzel (Golf), Dominic Thiem (Tennis), Feliciano Lopez (Tennis), Bernard Tomic (Tennis), Tejay van Garderen (Cycling), Nick Kyrgios (Tennis), Jason Day (Golf),  Dustin Johnson (Golf), Jordan Spieth (Golf), Milos Raonic (Tennis), Simona Halep (Tennis).

The four cases of Zika infection in Miami, likely the result of bites from local mosquitoes, may be just the beginning of the spread of the virus in the continental US, a health official said Friday. The Florida Department of Health reported Friday that the four people — a woman and three men — infected earlier this month in Miami are the first known “homegrown” cases of Zika virus in the US. “We anticipate that there may be additional cases of ‘homegrown’ Zika in the coming weeks,” Dr. Lyle Petersen of The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement. Although no mosquitoes have tested positive for the Zika virus yet, Florida health officials believe that active transmission of the Zika virus is occurring in a one-square-mile area just...

Mysterious Zika Cases Raise US Mosquito Fears Florida officials are investigating four cases of Zika that do not appear to be related to travel, raising fears mosquitoes in the US are spreading the virus. Up to now, the 1,400 infections reported in the US have been linked to people going to countries with Zika outbreaks in South America and the Caribbean. Two new cases have been announced in neighbouring Miami-Dade and Broward counties, which raise the possibility of local Zika transmission in the US. They are in addition to two others in the same areas that may also be non-travel related.

As many as 1.65 million women in Latin America could be infected with Zika while pregnant, meaning tens of thousands of pregnancies could be at risk, researchers said Monday. It’s the first real estimate of just how many actual pregnancies are at real risk, based on birth rates in each country and other factors. Brazil’s likely to be the worst affected, the team at the University of Notre Dame and Britain’s University of Southampton found published in Nature Microbiology: Model-based projections of Zika virus infections in childbearing women in the Americas Zika is known to cause a range of birth defects, from brain damage that leads to an unusually small head, called microcephaly, to more subtle nerve, organ and limb defects.

The BBC reports that scientists studying the Zika outbreak in Brazil are becoming increasingly concerned the virus may cause eye damage in babies. Stanford University researchers found abnormal bleeding and lesions in the eyes of three infant boys whose mothers had caught Zika while pregnant. They want any babies known to be affected by Zika to have eye checks. The journal of Ophthalmology findings follow another recent study that saw similar eye problems in Zika babies. The disease is already known to cause a serious baby brain defect called microcephaly.

The Daily Telegraph reports that two Vietnamese women have contracted the Zika virus which has been linked to thousands of suspected cases of microcephaly, a rare birth defect, in Brazil, and are the first Zika infections in Vietnam, the Health Ministry said on Tuesday. A 64-year-old woman in the beach city of Nha Trang and another woman, 33, in Ho Chi Minh City fell sick in late March, and three rounds of tests have confirmed they are Zika-positive, the ministry said in a statement. The two patients are in stable condition while no further infections among their relatives and neighbours have been found, the ministry said. Zika is carried by mosquitoes, which transmit the virus to humans. Zika has not been proven to cause microcephaly in babies, but there is growing evidence that suggests ...

Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, and several other countries have detected more GBS cases than usual, just as French Polynesia saw a surge of GBS cases during a Zika outbreak there in 2013 and 2014, according to the World Health Organization. In Colombia, three people with Zika-associated GBS have died, and health officials are investigating six other deaths. The country typically reports 240 or so cases of GBS each year, but had 86 in just five weeks in December and January, a few months after Zika was identified in Colombia, according to the WHO. ‘I can’t move’: In Colombia, families cope with creeping paralysis tied to Zika

Spain has confirmed that a pregnant woman has been diagnosed with the Zika virus – the first such case in Europe. The health ministry said the woman had recently returned from Colombia, where it is believed she was infected. Zika present in Europe

The Zika virus may lurk in a man’s semen long after any symptoms of the disease disappear, experts today warned. It raises fears the disease, which is spreading through the Americas, could be spread via sexual contact. Last week, health officials in Texas confirmed the first known case of sexual transmission of Zika during this outbreak, which started early last year. Zika Lingers in Semen