Zika virus claims first Spanish foetus

SADLY it has been revealed that amongst the 105 women who have been identified in Spain as having caught the Zika virus, the first sign of a foetus suffering microcephaly has been identified in a woman who is 20 weeks pregnant, and who visited South America where she also caught dengue fever.

Quite understandably, authorities are not identifying the woman concerned other than to say that she lives in Catalonia and currently plans to see the pregnancy through.

This virus, which is spread by the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, can result in babies born with brain abnormalities and undersized heads.

Although this is not the first case of an affected foetus being discovered in Europe, it is the first in Spain and there are fears that the mosquito will spread to Europe although amazingly the first recorded case of the virus was in a monkey in Uganda as early as 1947.