The United States has reported its first case of a newborn suffering from brain damage linked to the mosquito-borne Zika virus that has caused birth defects in Latin America.
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The Hawaii mother and baby are not infectious according to the state’s Department of Health, so there is no risk of transmission on the island.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to issue travel recommendations today or Saturday over concerns about the Zika virus and its effects on pregnant women.
Though the Zika virus is not a life-threatening illness, it has been linked to causing brain damage and an increased rate in the cases of microcephaly, babies born with small heads and brains, according to NBC News.
But in pregnant women, the virus can spread to the fetus and cause brain shrinkage – a rare condition called microcephaly that severely limits a child’s intellectual and physical development – or death.
But Brazil has been raising increasingly loud alarms about Zika. Travelers and people who live in the affected countries should make the most of available precautions, such as eliminating standing water, staying indoors, wearing long sleeves and long trousers and applying mosquito repellent to avoid bites.
Zika can be transmitted by an Aedes species mosquito that has bitten an infected person, but cannot spread between humans.
In the greater Houston area, doctors have been informed to be on the lookout for Zika symptoms and take careful travel histories of people who have traveled to Zika-affected areas, according to Shah. When they studied the amniotic fluid in pregnant women carrying babies with microcephaly, they found Zika. Since 2007, CDC has logged at least 22 cases of Zika infection in travelers returning to the US from countries where the virus is widespread.
A doctor attending to the woman in Hawaii, who was infected with the Zika virus, was aware that there might be a possibility that the woman was infected with the Zika virus, and he notified state health officials.
The Brazilian Health ministry says it’s developed new testing kits to rapidly identify the presence of three viruses – Dengue, Zika and Chikungunya – all carried by the same mosquito.
Until recently, Zika wasn’t on the radar screens because it only caused very mild illness.
On Friday, the CDC came out with an alert asking pregnant women – at any stage of pregnancy – to postpone travel to 14 destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean. All four mothers reported having experienced a fever and rash illness consistent with Zika virus disease (Zika) during their pregnancies.
Puerto Rico is part of the advisory because Zika infections have occurred there. For example the CDC explained that 12 people in the U.S. were seen to have the Zika virus in 2015 and 2016, but they were only travellers who got it from other countries. In the meantime, there’s no vaccine against Zika, a viral cousin of dengue fever, and no treatment for it.
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Ecuador, Haiti and Hawaii have recorded new cases of the Zika virus in the past few days spurring fears that the mosquito borne infection, similar to dengue fever, could spread across the Americas.
