Zika virus should spark review of birth control access

Dr Prasad said he has also written to the state health departments to take action against any labs ofering to provide any kind of tests for the Zika virus.

Officials previously recommended pregnant women postpone trips to more than two dozen countries with Zika outbreaks, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean. This is a condition where infants have abnormally small heads and often have underdeveloped brains.

Since November, Brazil has seen 404 confirmed cases of microcephaly in newborns.

Ospina says the cases confirm that Zika can cause deaths – though most worldwide experts are still cautious about whether Zika can trigger Guillain-Barre. Fifteen of the 404 passed away, “with five linked to Zika“. An additional 56 deaths are under investigation, and authorities are investigating 3,670 suspected cases. “If you’re pregnant, and you’re thinking about traveling to a place were Zika is spreading, please don’t. That’s the bottom line”.

According to the CDC, Zika fever illness is generally mild with a rash, fever and joint pain. Not every pregnant woman who contracts Zika will give birth to a baby with microcephaly. It said it was reinforcing instructions to blood banks that people infected with Zika or dengue not be permitted to donate blood for 30 days after full recovery from the active stage of Zika infection.

“We are asking those governments to go back and change those laws”, she said. Florida now has the capacity to test only 475 people.

Frieden also announced new guidelines for men who have partners who are pregnant.

The guidance issued Friday also says men might consider abstaining or using condoms even if they have sex with a woman who isn’t pregnant.

“Avoid sharing glasses, silverware, contact with someone who has symptoms of a possible infection”.

Sex As early as last week, the idea that Zika could be spread via semen seemed more theoretical than probable. “Carnival could become the conduit for an explosive environmental cocktail that accelerates the spread of the Zika virus”.

“It was known that the virus could be present in both urine and saliva”.

Both the US CDC and Fiocruz in Brazil said more research was needed on person-to-person transmission. However, it is not clear whether the virus can be transmitted through bodily fluids.

“I think we need to be careful that don’t we jump to any conclusions about transmissibility”, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

On Monday, the World Health Organization declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern – for microcephaly, not Zika – and directed health workers to investigate if there’s a causal link between the two. Other scientists argue that it is extremely unlikely for the disease to spread in this way. We should point out that as of right now, no one has caught the virus from a mosquito in the USA – only from insects overseas.