The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday repeated its recommendation that pregnant women avoid travel to affected countries until more can be learned about whether it can affect unborn babies. Babies with the condition often have smaller brains that might not have developed properly.
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Public Health England advises women who are pregnant, or planning to become pregnant, should consider avoiding areas affected by the virus.
There would only be a concern if the traveller was pregnant – including detailed ultrasound scans as the baby develops to check for microcephaly.
Moreover, he added, “women traveling to areas where Zika virus has been reported should take all precautions to avoid mosquito bites, including covering exposed skin, staying in indoor- or screened-in areas, and using EPA-approved bug spray with DEET (which is safe for use during pregnancy)”, DeFrancesco said.
Acute symptoms of Zika can last from four to seven days and includes fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, eyeball pain, weakness, red rash consisting of small bumps, swelling in the lower limbs, anorexia, vomiting and diarrhea, abdominal pain and conjunctivitis.
The disease chikungunya first appeared in the Caribbean island of Saint Martin in 2013 and has since spread to 45 different countries.
There is now no vaccine available for the virus, so only the symptoms can be treated.
Dr Dipti Patel, director at National Travel Health Network and Centre, warned pregnant women not to travel to countries where there is an outbreak of the virus.
-Zika is primarily transmitted through the bite of infected Aedes mosquitoes and can also be transmitted from a pregnant mother to her baby. ZIKV is an infectious virus that is spread by the bite of mosquitos.
Brazilian hematologist Dr. Wellington Galvão says the average number of patients he treats for GBS is around 10 to 15 per year.
“It’s a mosquito that is endemic in the whole of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the population of the Americas was not exposed to the virus, so there’s no immunity to it”, he said.
It was only by examining a connection between microcephaly and the rise of mosquitoes in Brazil, that doctors discovered the virus, according to Vox.
As of December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta reported evidence of transmission of the virus in at least 45 countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas and the Pacific islands.
From 2007 to 2014, 14 US residents tested positive for the Zika virus after traveling overseas, CDC officials said last week.
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Health officials in Brazil are reporting of the 42 confirmed cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, 26 of the patients showed signs of a possible Zika virus infection.
