The World Health Organization has announced that Zika virus infection, a mosquito-borne illness that in the past year has swept quickly throughout equatorial countries, is expected to spread across the Americas and into the U.S. Some reports from Brazil indicate that pregnant women who were exposed to the Zika virus had babies born with microcephaly, or, a smaller than usual head.
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The U.S. cases have all been travelers who returned from a country where the transmission of Zika virus from mosquitoes to humans is ongoing.
Florida, Hawaii and NY have also reported cases in recent weeks of residents who contracted Zika after they traveled to areas impacted by the virus.
Travel advice from the National Travel Health Network and Centre urges pregnant women to reconsider travel to areas where the outbreak has been reported. While Zika causes mild symptoms in most infected people, the virus can be particularly serious for pregnant women.
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The Zika virus was first discovered in a monkey in Uganda in 1947; its name comes from the Zika forest, where it was first discovered.
The federal health agency listed as Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Saint Martin, Suriname, Samoa, Venezuela and the USA territory of Puerto Rico as hazardous areas. She says numerous victims are elderly.
Transmission is probable because the Aedes mosquitoes, which spread the virus, populate the entire region except for Canada and continental Chile. But officials also have said Zika infections probably won’t be a big problem in the USA for a number of reasons, including the more common use of air conditioning and door and window screens. This condition often results in an underdeveloped brain and can even cause death. Infected pregnant women could give birth to babies with deformed heads that are abnormally small in size.
“Although a causal link between Zika infection in pregnancy and microcephaly has not been established, the circumstantial evidence is suggestive and extremely worrisome”, Dr. Chan said in a statement.
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Women who think they may be pregnant in the weeks before travelling to the Olympics in Brazil later this year should consider abandoning their trip because of the risks posed by the Zika virus to their unborn child, a senior scientist has warned. It first appeared in Brazil in May of 2015. Dengue and Zika are both transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
