Daily Times

BOGOTA – The mosquito-borne Zika virus sweeping through Latin America has claimed three lives in Colombia, as the United Nations urged increased access to abortion because of fears of severe birth defects.

In the first direct statements from government health officials blaming Zika for causing deaths, Colombia’s National Health Institute (INS) said the patients died after contracting the virus and developing a rare neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Cases of the syndrome – in which the immune system attacks the nervous system causing weakness and sometimes paralysis – have increased in tandem with the Zika outbreak, fueling suspicions that it is a complication of the otherwise mild tropical fever, which is also blamed for causing brain damage in babies born to infected mothers.

“Other cases (of deaths linked to Zika) are going to emerge. The world is realising that Zika can be deadly. The mortality rate is not very high, but it can be deadly,” said epidemiologist Martha Lucia Ospina, director of the INS.