CDC issues travel alert to 8 new locations because of Zika virus

The virus has been linked with microcephaly, which can leave affected newborns with unusually small heads and abnormal brain development.

If pregnant women do travel to a country with Zika transmission and develop two or more symptoms of the virus during or within two weeks of travel, they should be tested for the virus, according to the CDC guidelines released this week.

Such women should also talk to their health care provider to assess their risk and strictly follow precautions to avoid mosquito bites if they can’t postpone the trip.

The most common symptoms of Zika virus disease are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis.

Ko says it may be that the Americas are fertile ground for the virus – this hemisphere has the right type of mosquitoes to transmit Zika and people have no immunity to it.

Earlier this week, USA health officials issued new guidance for women who might have been exposed to the Zika virus, a mosquito-borne infection that can cause brain damage in a developing fetus.

It is plausible that Zika may have worse effects in people who have been infected with dengue or another virus before.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday extended the list of territories on its no-go list for pregnant women. Currently, one infant diagnosed with the condition in Hawaii is carrying the virus – the first case of Zika-connected microcephaly in the US. Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a condition that can cause weakness or paralysis, has been reported in patients with probable Zika virus infection in French Polynesia and Brazil. But medical historians say confirmed cases were rare until 2007, when an outbreak was identified in the South Pacific Federated States of Micronesia.

Concern over the spread of the virus prompted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue a travel alert last week urging pregnant women to avoid 14 destinations, including Puerto Rico, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela.

Dr. Antonio Bandeira, an infectologist with the Couto Maia Hospital in the northeastern city of Salvador, said that during last year’s rainy season, when a Zika outbreak was at its peak, he had an unusual spate of patients with Guillain-Barre. “According to their ministry of public health, Zika has arrived in Haiti with five known cases in Port-Au-Prince, the capital”.

In Colombia, more than 13,500 cases have been reported, and the country’s health minister has advised women there to delay pregnancy. “We just don’t know”.