El Salvador Urges Women Not To Get Pregnant

Central American nation El Salvador has advice its women not to get pregnant till 2018 due to the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne virus linked to severe brain damage in infants.

The Central American nation has advised all women to hold off on getting pregnant until 2018, when the government projects the dangers of the virus will be better understood. Zika has been linked to microcephaly, a rare condition that causes incomplete brain development in infants. While the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have stated that further research on this link is needed, the outbreak of the virus in Brazil presents alarming data. There, more than a million people have been infected and nearly 4,000 children have been born with the condition.

According to the World Health Organization update on Sunday Zika has already taken hold in 21 countries and territories of the Americas and will almost certainly continue to spread.  The CDC said there are at least a dozen or so confirmed cases of Zika virus in the United States already and the states affected include: Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey and Texas. Health officials added that there is no risk to the public as all the cases documented so far have been in returning travellers who were likely infected by mosquitoes while travelling abroad.

While some health officials have urged pregnant woman to avoid the 2016 Olympics in Rio to avoid exposure to Zika infected mosquitos, the country's Ministry of Health has promised assist organizers in preventing the spread of the virus.