Zika virus

C.D.C. Advises Against Travel to Zika-AffectedCountries in Southeast Asia

  Federal health officials on Thursday advised pregnant women to “consider postponing nonessential” travel to 11 countries in Southeast Asia where the Zika virus was circulating.

  The warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was not as urgent as those issued starting in January, which advised pregnant women to avoid Latin American and Caribbean countries overwhelmed by the Zika epidemic.

The countries cited in the new advisory by the C.D.C. include Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

  The C.D.C. has warned pregnant women since Aug. 30 to avoid Singapore because of a fast-growing outbreak there.

  Scientists believe the Zika virus has circulated in Asia since at least the 1960s, but it is unclear how common outbreaks are. Health agencies there have only recently begun testing for it.

  Zika was not considered a serious disease until late last year, when dozens of babies with tiny heads and malformed brains — a condition known as  — microcephaly were born in hospitals in northeast Brazil to mothers who had been infected with the virus six to nine months beforehand.

  Many residents of Southeast Asia are probably immune, the C.D.C. said in its new advisory. But infections have been found in people who traveled there from the United States.

  The risk is “likely lower (but not zero) than in areas where Zika is newly introduced and spreading widely,” the agency said.

  Pregnant women who have traveled to any of the 11 countries or Singapore should have Zika tests, the C.D.C. said. Other recent visitors who have experienced Zika symptoms should also consider being tested.

  The virus is thought to have circulated in Africa for centuries, probably in monkeys and people. It was first isolated in a monkey in the Zika Forest in Uganda in 1947, and occasional testing since then by virologists has found that many people in tropical parts of Africa carry antibodies to it.

  Virologists believe it has never caused noticeable waves of birth defects in tropical Africa or Asia, as it has in South America, because most women get the virus as young girls and are immune by the time they reach their childbearing years.

  The Zika virus was first noticed in the Western Hemisphere in Brazil in early 2015, when large numbers of people in its northeast began suffering its symptoms: low fever, rash, bloodshot eyes and joint pain. It may have circulated at low levels for a year before it was noticed, scientists said.

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 Structure of the Lead：

WHO: women

WHEN:In early 2015

WHAT:babies with tiny heads and malformed brains 

WHY:The virus is thought to have circulated in Africa for centuries, probably in monkeys and people. 

WHERE:Latin American and Caribbean countries

HOW:The C.D.C. has warned pregnant women not go there

1.Keywords:

2.Zika  virus:茲卡病毒

3.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention美國疾病控制與預防中心

4. microcephaly :小頭症

5.antibodies :抗體
6.birth defects:先天缺陷
7..bloodshot eyes:眼充血
8.joint pain:關節疼痛