The Centers for Disease Control is investigating 14 new cases of Zika in the United States.
These cases are in addition to a sexually transmitted case reported in early February in Texas. Pregnant women should discuss their male partner’s potential exposures to mosquitoes and history of Zika-like illness with their health care provider; providers can consult CDC’s guidelines for evaluation and testing of pregnant women.
The CDC launched a study of the Zika virus‘s correlation to a condition called microcephaly, which causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads, in Brazil this week.
The CDC recommends that all travelers use insect repellent while in Zika outbreak areas, and continue to use it for three weeks after travel in case they might be infected but not sick.
So far there have been no cases on the USA mainland of people getting Zika through the bite of an infected mosquito – the main means of transmission for the equatorial virus.
Warning that the Zika virus might be sexually transmitted more easily than was originally thought, officials are urging men who have traveled to the affected region to practice safe sex upon their return if their partners are pregnant.
Particles of Zika virus are colored red in this transmission electron micrograph.
Earlier this month the CDC issued guidance aimed at preventing the virus’s spread through sex to pregnant women.
So, how do you make sure you don’t get Zika or infect someone else – after all, 20% of cases are symptomless?
“We were surprised that there was this number”, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the deputy director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview.
In four out of five cases, people who are bitten by an infected mosquito show no symptoms.
At present, several countries including the United States are working to produce a vaccine for the Zika virus. “While we don’t have specific information that proves this was sexual transmission, we know that some other viruses are found in semen as well as in saliva and we know that the sexual route is the clear route of spread”, she said.
“I come from a pediatric infectious disease background and am also a mom, so looking at these children clinically, they were distinct from other congenital infections I’ve seen”, said Staples, who spent time in Brazil recently as part of a World Health Organization mission.
Dubai is free of the species of mosquito responsible for spreading the Zika virus, according to a public health official.
“The Zika virus is very tricky, very tenacious, very hard”.