Men who have traveled to Zika-affected areas and have pregnant partners should abstain from sex or consistently and correctly use condoms for the duration of the pregnancy for all forms of sexual activity.
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“In the context of a public health emergency of worldwide concern, there is an imperative on all parties to make any information available that might have value in combatting the crisis”, the signatories wrote.
In 2015, an outbreak of the Zika virus was reported in Brazil.
European researchers uncovered an extremely abnormal brain – not only a fraction of the proper size but lacking the usual crinkly neural folds – in a fetus whose mother suffered Zika symptoms at the end of the first trimester while she was living in Brazil. There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika.
In testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee about her department’s budget request, Burwell said cases of the virus had occurred in travelers returning to the United States, and that there had been one case of sexual transmission in Dallas.
“Most women in Zika-affected areas will give birth to normal infants”.
This also meant it was critical that as results become available they shared rapidly in a way that is equitable, ethical and transparent, he added.
Pregnant women infected with the Zika virus should seek counselling and antenatal care from a medical practitioner.
“We’re trying to understand how exactly the mosquito’s immune response works and then how the virus overcomes that immune system to be transmitted to a human host”, said Associate Professor Kevin Myles. These mosquitoes are the same species that transmit dengue and chikungunya viruses.
The virus is suspected of causing a defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads.
Aedes mosquitoes predominantly bite during the day, but especially during mid-morning and late afternoon to dusk (as opposed to mosquitoes that transmit malaria, which bite at night between dusk and dawn). Zika symptoms, which include fever, rash, joint pain and redness of the eyes, are mild, and serious illness requiring hospitalization is uncommon.
Thus, ominously, parallel to the increased number of pregnant women infected with the Zika virus there was an increase of microcephaly cases in their children.
The mosquito has not been found in Kentucky – and no cases of Zika have been reported in the commonwealth.
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Whether the mosquito-borne virus really causes microcephaly isn’t yet proven, but Wednesday’s report in The New England Journal of Medicine offers additional biologic clues.
