Study finds Zika virus in fetal brain, a clue in outbreak

State Department Officials confirmed the first recorded case of the Zika virus in East Tennessee just days ago.

The federal government has been monitoring the Zika virus and working with domestic and global health partners to alert healthcare providers and the public about the virus.

Bernhard Schwartlander, the World Health Organization representative in Beijing, said imported cases of Zika in China are to be expected given the frequency of travel between the country and South America. All pregnant women with a history of travel to an area with Zika virus transmission should be evaluated.

The people who’ve been tested did so because they’ve traveled overseas to areas where they could have been exposed to the mosquito-borne virus. The most common symptoms of the virus are rash, fever, red eyes and joint pain.

There’s no vaccine for the virus, which primarily spreads through bites from a mosquito not typically found in Ohio.

“Zika may endanger pregnancies, so women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant should be particularly careful to avoid the disease”, said Modie in a news release.

He said that data from the cases of two infants in Brazil who died soon after birth indicated the virus had passed from mother to child.

The Zika virus is a Vector Borne Disease (VBD), meaning that it requires a vector (mosquito) to take it to its host (in this case humans).

“One of the things we’re ordering is the virus itself”, said Myles.

Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr Jeanette Young, has urged pregnant Queensland women not to travel to places where there have been Zika outbreaks. It is indeed spreading very fast, and has affected most of the countries in Latin America, especially Brazil where more than 1.5 million people have been infected.

For more on Zika virus, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC is also now investigating whether pregnant women can contract the Zika virus through kissing. There have been some reports of Zika transmission through blood or sexual fluids. Often women don’t know they’re pregnant until later in the first trimester, but infections occurring early in the pregnancy can have the worst effects, he said.

But CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden told a congressional committee on Wednesday that much of the effort must be on mosquito control, too, including in southern parts of the US that harbor the mosquito that spreads the virus. The lack of knowledge about the Zika virus, the absence of reliable diagnostic procedures, treatment regimens and vaccines further complicates the dilemma.