RESPONSE HIGHLIGHTS
• UNICEF is now implementing Care and Support activity for families affected by Congenital ZIKV Syndrome in Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guatemala, Brazil and Belize. To date 556 families across the region have benefited from non-clinical care and support interventions.
• UNICEF continues to use innovative approaches to the ZIKV Response. In Belize, WhatsApp groups are being used to train health workers on identifying abnormalities in ultra-scans, whilst in the Dominican Republic a partnership with several Health Insurance companies forms part of their ZIKV awareness strategy. The number of U-Reporters continues to grow in the region, and the youth social change platform is being used as an essential part of prevention strategies in Guatemala and El Salvador as well as via U-Report Global.
• UNICEF’s role as coordinating multiple government and nongovernment partners continues at national, regional and community level.
• UNICEF has initiated processes to document and systematize experience from the ZIKV Response. This is to share best practice as part of the current response, but also to be used more widely as an example of a public health emergency response.
1. Situation Overview
• UNICEF works with epidemiological data from PAHO. The latest cumulative cases report (29 Jun 2017) can be found here, whilst the latest epidemiological update (25 May 2017) can be found here.
• To date, 61 countries and territories around the world report continuing mosquitoborne transmission. 48 countries and territories in the Americas have confirmed autochthonous, vector-borne transmission of Zika virus disease since 2015, while five countries have reported sexually transmitted Zika cases.
• The trend of reported new cases in Central America continues to decrease, with the exception of Belize. In Turks and Caicos, an increase in the number of suspected cases was observed between EW 4 and EW 8 of 2017. Following a declining trend in reported cases since EW 7 of 2016, starting from EW 1 of 2017, there has been an increasing trend of reported cases in South America mainly due to increases in the number of cases in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru.
• To date, 26 countries and territories in the Americas have reported confirmed cases of congenital syndrome associated with Zika virus infection. In EW 15 and EW 17 of 2017, Ecuador and Barbados reported for the first time confirmed cases of congenital syndrome associated with Zika virus infection. In the last eight weeks (EW 10 to EW 17 of 2017), Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Martinique, Mexico,
Puerto Rico, and the United States of America updated their number of cases of congenital syndrome associated with Zika virus infection.
• In EW 17 of 2017, Barbados reported its first five cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) associated with Zika virus infection.