US Adds More Countries to Zika Travel Alert

Public Health England says that, as of 18 January 2016, there have been three cases diagnosed in people returning from South or Central America.

The statement said Zika “does not occur naturally in the UK” and said it can be transmitted only from the bite of a mosquito or, in rare cases “through sexual transmission or by transmission from mother to foetus via the placenta”.

Meanwhile, US health authorities have warned pregnant women to avoid travelling to more than 20 countries in the Americas and beyond, where Zika cases have been registered.

The growing concern has caused El Salvador to recommend women hold off on pregnancy until 2018, and, in the USA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel alert for women of childbearing age, telling them to avoid countries with Zika, according to the BBC. “In response, health authorities in several countries, including Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, and Jamaica, have asked women to voluntarily consider delaying their pregnancies”.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Two Latin American countries are investigating whether outbreaks of the mosquito-borne Zika virus are behind a rise in a rare and sometimes life-threatening nerve condition that can cause paralysis and leave victims on life-support.

Officials wouldn’t say where the people had recently traveled, describing the locations as areas where the “virus transmission is ongoing”. Researchers have yet to weigh in on a connection between symptomless pregnant women with Zika and infant microcephaly, but there is still an elevated risk.

When there are symptoms, the most common are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (or red eyes).

This 2003 photo provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a female Aedes albopictus mosquito acquiring a blood meal from a human host. The recommendations also call for women who have traveled to these places during their pregnancy be screened and monitored for the virus if their visit took place while the virus was present in the country they visited.

While infections, even when symptomatic, are mild, the increase number of infections has presumably led to an increase in the number of infants born with microcephaly.

Video: Zika Virus: Should We Be Worried?

The scare came as many people prepared to travel to and around Brazil for the February carnival – not to mention months before visitors from around the world will come for the Olympics.

About a half-dozen cases of Zika have turned up in the US over the past two weeks – all in travelers returning from parts of Latin America and the Caribbean where the outbreak is raging.