EU to grant $10.7m to fight Zika virus at the bloc's
Joao-Gomes Cravinho, European Union bloc's Ambassador to Brazil, said the union would approve 10.7 million dollars grant to Brazill to finance research on Zika virus in the Union bloc's
Cravinho disclosed this during a meeting on Wednesday with Brazilian Health Minister, Marcelo Castro, and 24 ambassadors of EU countries.
He said funding for research to try to establish facts about Zika virus had become so imperative, and more so that WHO had declared it a public health emergency.
He said the Zika virus had really constituted a public health emergency of international concern.
Cravinho said with the grant all the officials that attended the meeting were more prepared to correctly inform people about the reality of the Zika virus.
``Latin America has been witnessing an outbreak of Zika.
``Cases of Europeans who presented symptoms of the virus after a trip to the region have been reported.
``The disease became a great source of concern after the discovery of its relation with microcephaly and Guillain-Barre Syndrome,’’ he said.
The ambassador noted that more than 400 cases of microcephaly in newborns had been confirmed in Brazil, though not all of them were confirmed to have been caused by an infection of Zika during gestation.
Source: NAN
