The Zika virus, suspected of causing brain damage in babies and a neurological ailment in adults, has now also been linked to the paralyzing disorder myelitis, French researchers said Tuesday.

A 15-year-old girl diagnosed with acute myelitis in January had high levels of Zika in her cerebrospinal fluid, blood and urine, said Annie Lannuzel of the University Hospital Center Pointe-a-Pitre in Guadeloupe.

Scientists on Friday said they had found the first evidence of a biological link between the Zika virus sweeping Latin America and microcephaly, a severe deformation of the brain among newborns.

Laboratory tests found that the virus targeted key cells involved in brain development and then destroyed or disabled them, they said.

A study published this week was the strongest piece of evidence yet that that the Zika virus causes the neurological disorder Guillain-Barre Syndrome, but more research was needed, the U.N. said Friday. 

The deputy chief of the World Health Organization, Bruce Aylward, said the study from the medical journal Lancet which focused on a small sample of people in French Polynesia provided compelling evidence that Zika triggers the syndrome.

Google on Thursday said that it is working with UNICEF to map the spread of Zika and pitching in a million dollars to support the group's efforts on the ground.

A volunteer team of Google engineers, designers and data scientists is helping UNICEF build a computer platform to analyze data from sources such as weather and travel patterns to predict potential outbreaks, the director of the Internet giant's charitable arm said in a blog post.

Cuba has detected the first case of Zika in a Venezuelan doctor who came to the island for postgraduate studies, the health ministry said Wednesday.

The 28-year-old woman, who arrived in Cuba on February 21, is hospitalized at the Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine Institute in the capital Havana.

Scientists have been telling Americans about the benefits of healthy eating for decades, and yet more Americans are obese than ever -- more than a third of the country.

Now, researchers at Harvard and Tufts Universities have laid out concrete steps officials can take by linking food prices to health effects.

Brazil has confirmed 641 cases of microcephaly and 139 babies with the birth defect who have died since the Zika virus outbreak started in October, the Health Ministry said Tuesday.

The latest figure was up 10 percent over the number of microcephaly cases reported by the ministry last week.

The risk of catching Ebola from a survivor is generally low since the virus disappears from the blood within weeks, but it may persist in semen for many months, researchers said Monday.

Until now, scientists have been uncertain of how to characterize the risk of catching the Ebola virus -- which killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa -- via social contact with survivors who have overcome their illness.

Scientists on Tuesday said they had confirmed that the Zika virus sweeping Latin America and blamed for severe birth defects can also trigger a dangerous neurological disorder.

In a study published in the medical journal The Lancet, a team probed Zika's suspected role in a 2013-2014 outbreak in French Polynesia of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) -- a rare condition in which the body's immune system attacks a part of the nervous system that controls muscle strength.

Parents Monday withdrew all the children from a Sri Lankan school after false rumors spread that a new six-year-old pupil was HIV-positive, an official said.

Parents also protested outside Sambodi Primary School northeast of Colombo against the boy's admission after he turned up for his first day of class, the official said.