Chile reports three Zika cases

Hours after reporting Chile's first confirmed Zika infection, Chilean authorities have listed two more cases from the virus that is spreading rapidly in Latin America.

The Chilean Health Ministry says all three Zika cases reported Tuesday were contracted outside Chile. It says one person was infected while traveling in Venezuela, one in Colombia and one in Brazil. All are recovering.

Chile doesn't have infestations of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can carry such diseases as Zika, dengue and chikungunya.

The World Health Organization says Zika is likely to spread to every country in the Americas where the Aedes aegypti is found. That is every nation but Canada and Chile.

In the meantime, Brazilian officials have lowered the country's number of suspected microcephaly cases, to 3,670 from 3,893 on Jan. 20. Brazil's Heath Ministry says the rare brain defect in babies has been confirmed in 404 of those cases.

The ministry says microcephaly cases since Oct. 22 have been confirmed in 156 cities in nine states, most in Brazil's impoverished northeast. That region is the epicenter of the outbreak of the Zika virus.

The report published Tuesday says 17 of the 404 confirmed microcephaly cases have been linked to Zika infections.

Infants with microcephaly have smaller than normal heads and their brains do not develop properly. Many fetuses with the condition are miscarried, and others die during birth or shortly after. Those who survive suffer from developmental and health problems.

The Brazilian Health Ministry said that the health minister and the U.S. secretary of health and human Services have discussed ways the two countries can work together to create a vaccine against the Zika virus and combat the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits the virus.

An emailed statement from the ministry says the Health Minister Marcelo Castro and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathes Burwell talked by phone Tuesday.

The statement said technicians of the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet with technicians of the Brazilian Health Ministry and of three biomedical and clinical research centers. The meeting is scheduled for Feb. 20 in Brazil.

Also, Nicaragua confirmed its first two cases of the Zika virus in pregnant women.

Government spokeswoman Rosario Murillo says four women have tested positive for the virus in the Central American nation, including two who are three and one-half and four months pregnant. That brings the country's total known cases of Zika to 15.

Murillo says the country is monitoring World Health Organization recommendations and has directed local health authorities to pay close attention to pregnant women who may have contracted Zika.

She noted Tuesday that not all pregnant women infected with Zika give birth to babies with the rare condition known as microcephaly.