Zika virus outbreak timeline

China on April 7 reported no new coronavirus deaths for the first time since it started publishing figures in January, the National Health Commission said.          

Cases in mainland China have been dwindling since March, but the country faces a second wave of infections brought in from overseas, with health officials reporting nearly 1,000 imported cases in total.

Turkey’s Health Minister Ahmet Demircan said on Jan. 11 that the government has been closely monitoring the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

The deadly Zika virus could spread to the central Anatolian region of Turkey in seven years, Turkish Health Ministry has stated in a recent report.

U.S. health officials have concluded that infection with the Zika virus in pregnant women is a cause of the birth defect microcephaly and other severe brain abnormalities in babies. 

Joint teams of U.S. and Brazilian health workers will fan out across one of Brazil's poorest states Feb. 23 in search of mothers and infants for a study aimed at determining whether the Zika virus is causing babies to be born with unusually small heads.

More than 3,100 pregnant Colombian women are infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Feb. 6, as the disease continues its rapid spread across the Americas. 

There are 25,645 people infected with Zika in Colombia, Santos said during a TV broadcast with health officials. Among them are 3,177 pregnant women. 

Ireland’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) confirmed that two people affected by Zika virus.

One case is in a man and the other in an older woman, but both have recovered from the infection, BBC reports.

They both have a history of travel to a Zika affected country, while the HSE has said the cases are unrelated.

A small Australian maker of bug sprays became an unlikely beneficiary of the mosquito-borne Zika virus outbreak this week when the country's Olympic team signed it up as its first official insect repellent sponsor. 

Brazil warned pregnant women on Feb. 1 to stay away from the Summer Olympics after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international emergency over the Zika virus, blamed for causing a surge in brain-damaged babies.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan declared on Monday that the Zika virus constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

Chan had convened an Emergency Committee to collect advice on the severity of the health threat associated with the continuing spread of Zika virus disease in Latin America and the Caribbean.