A transmission electron micrograph (TEM) shows the Zika virus, in an undated photo provided by the Centers For Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. Credit: Reuters/CDC/Cynthia Goldsmith

A transmission electron micrograph (TEM) shows the Zika virus, in an undated photo provided by the Centers For Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.
Credit: Reuters/CDC/Cynthia Goldsmith

GENEVA/LONDON — The mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has been linked to brain damage in thousands of babies in Brazil, is likely to spread to all countries in the Americas except for Canada and Chile, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

Zika transmission has not yet been reported in the continental United States, although a woman who fell ill with the virus in Brazil later gave birth to a brain-damaged baby in Hawaii.

Brazil’s Health Ministry said in November that Zika was linked to a fetal deformation known as microcephaly, in which infants are born with smaller-than-usual brains.

Brazil has reported 3,893 suspected cases of microcephaly, the WHO said last Friday, over 30 times more than in any year since 2010 and equivalent to 1-2 percent of all newborns […]

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