Expert Calls for Strong Zika Virus Surveillance in West Africa

A global health expert is sounding the alarm that an epidemic of Zika infections may be headed to western Africa, in countries ravaged over the past two years by Ebola. He says efforts to contain Zika are essential to head off another devastating public health emergency on the continent.

This week, a baby in Cape Verde, a Portuguese-speaking island off the northwestern coast of Africa, was born with the neurological defect microcephaly, a small head due to an undeveloped brain. Tests are still pending to see whether the birth defect was caused by Zika virus, a pathogen carried by mosquitoes.

The disease has infected dozens of pregnant women in South America, mostly in Brazil, who have given birth to babies with microcephaly. The condition causes stillbirth, or if the baby lives, severe neurological complications.

Daniel Lucey, an infectious diseases specialist at Georgetown University in Washington fears the case of microcephaly in Cape Verde could be a sign of things to come in Western Africa.

He is calling for strong and immediate preventive measures.

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