Puerto Rico braced for more Zika cases

Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico could become infected with the Zika virus in the coming months, according to the director of America's Centre for Disease Control.

The BBC writes:

Dr Tom Frieden says this could lead to "thousands" of brain-damaged babies. Zika has now been reported in 31 countries and territories in the Americas, with Brazil the worst hit. There have been about 100 cases of Zika reported in mainland US. These were in travellers who had recently returned from Zika-hit countries. The Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the virus can be found in about a dozen US states, so the mainland is bracing itself for locally transmitted infections very soon. Southern states such as Florida and Texas are particularly vulnerable. But Dr Frieden - who is advising the president on this emergency - says Puerto Rico is the biggest concern for the US.

The Washington Post reports:

There are 117 confirmed cases of the virus in Puerto Rico, four times the number at the end of January. The island territory, which has a population of 3.5 million people, is “by far the most affected area” in the United States, Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Friday. The number will almost certainly rise sharply in coming weeks, making it ever more likely that the virus will spread to the continental United States.