Pregnant Woman in Puerto Rico Diagnosed with Zika Virus

Puerto Rico reported its first case of the mosquito-borne virus in December.

“There is not a single case of a baby with microcephaly coming from a woman who has Zika“, he said.

“How can they ask these women not to become pregnant but not offer … the possibility to stop their pregnancies?” spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly said. El Salvador has advised women to avoid getting pregnant until 2018.

There’s also a new confirmed case in Travis County in Central Texas.

The timing, and the fact that numerous mothers were diagnosed with Zika or reported symptoms, have caused alarm over an apparent link with the virus.

Just one in four people infected with Zika develop symptoms.

Meanwhile, Brazil said it is sending samples related to the Zika outbreak to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, after accusations that it was hoarding data and biological material.

Zika, which is largely transmitted by mosquitoes, has been linked to an unusually large number of babies born with microcephaly, which causes small heads and poorly developed brains, leading to developmental delays and seizures.

US health authorities recommended that men who have visited areas with the Zika virus use condoms if they have sex with pregnant women. The guidance suggested abstinence as an alternative protection measure.

The updated advice: If your male partner lives in (or recently traveled to) one of the areas where the Zika virus is circulating, he should either wear a condom – or you two should put off sex entirely – until you give birth.

Abranches said she could not provide more details on what the changes might look like or comment on whether Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff would enact the decree.

Friday’s news comes at the beginning of the annual Carnival festivities here and across the Americas, when revelers often kiss strangers in the streets and casually engage in other forms of intimate contact.

The link hasn’t been confirmed but the possibility has prompted health officials to take cautionary steps to protect fetuses from the virus.

The Fiocruz team studied samples from two patients who showed symptoms of Zika and tested positive for the illness. However, in a statement issued Thursday, the bishops said that the World Health Organization’s declaration earlier this week that Zika was an worldwide emergency didn’t justify abortion.

The union’s members include workers who go door-to-door in Rio de Janeiro trying to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Zika.

In a Friday statement to The AP, the health ministry said it was “at the disposal” of global researchers studying Zika. Door-to-door inspections have increased in neighborhoods where 12 cases of Zika were reported.