Health committee  It's a concern only in pregnant women or only in men who then have sex with someone or get someone pregnant. That's when it's a concern because, you're right; 80% majority don't know they're infected, and if they don't know, why would they think about it? Part of what we've had in terms of the testing is that if a pregnant woman has been travelling to the area and they come back, whether they've had symptoms or not, we advise them to talk to their doctor.

Health committee  I'm not aware of that. The research I've seen is two weeks. If it's 62 days, I'd like to see that.

Health committee  I'll let Dr. Gilmour answer that, but on the surface of it, what we do for microcephaly in particular is serial ultrasounds. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists tells me that's not particularly good, and it doesn't work until later on, so it doesn't help early. We do serology in pregnant women.

Health committee  It's been for a while. We are also tweeting them with attachments. Those are infographics you're looking at, which we've been designing and trying to communicate. I think they are in our tweets and on Facebook. I'll have to get back to you in terms of how long they've been up, but they've been up for a bit, a few weeks.

Health committee  We typically put the information through our travel health notices. That is something we put out on an ongoing basis, routinely. We thought that was the best way. It's actually picked up by the app. We have a travel app now where our information is hidden within the typical advisories about what's happening.

Health committee  Yes. We sometimes do that. That's where we do surveys, contact people, and look at whether the information is going out. We have not done that yet. That might be something to consider in the future.

Health committee  It depends on what you mean by “strong”. It's getting stronger every day, and more and more evidence comes out in little bits and pieces virtually daily. There was a report last week that came out in terms of infected stem cells with a precursor to neurological tissue. It is changing.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  Yes, definitely.

Health committee  Yes, it is moving in that direction. As well there was evidence that it is affecting outside the neurological system, other parts, small fetus, etc. It's looking more and more causal, but we're not quite there yet. Is it there, did it cause that problem, or did it just happen to be there?

Health committee  I hear three questions and they're all excellent. In terms of pregnant women, as Matt said, we're doing all of the testing in Canada right now, both for the presence of the active virus in the blood and for antibodies towards the virus. The latter test is tough to interpret. It's very difficult to interpret, and we're suggesting that the doctor be aware of that and that they have a good conversation with their patient, either before or after that test.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  That's a very good question. I alluded to this earlier, that the presence in semen, for example, is new knowledge. Prior to this outbreak there were only very rare cases of sexual transmission. I think the U.S. now has identified six, if not more, potential cases of sexual transmission, where men have gone to a Zika-infected country and brought it back and infected a woman through sexual transmission.

Health committee  When you work for the federal government it always feel like a 10 when moving with the provinces. We've had very good relations. It's becoming almost routine, if I may say, so we had the pandemic and then we had Ebola, and then we've had disease after disease, which is really quite interesting.

Health committee  Currently, the virus is not transmitted in Canada. The mosquitoes that transmit the virus can't live in our cold weather. As Matt said, there's research going on to see if Canadian mosquitoes could transmit the virus. Currently, there's a very low risk of that happening in Canada.