AAA said they are monitoring the situation, and recommend people purchase travel insurance so they could change plans, if necessary. The CDC had previously issued a similar warning for 14 other countries including Brazil and Honduras.
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However, Swartzberg says a scary impact of Zika appears to be a major birth defect called microcephaly.
The Foreign Office advised Britons to seek advice before travelling anywhere where the virus has been reported in the past year “particularly if you’re pregnant or planning to become pregnant”. An estimated 80 percent of those infected show no symptoms at all.
He said there were “about 20 countries in the Americas which are reporting Zika cases, and about 10 in Africa, Asia and the Pacific”, but the biggest outbreaks were in Brazil, Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America. Since then the disease has spread to 18 other countries in south and central America and the Caribbean.
Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a rare disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves eventually paralyzing the entire body, has been reported in patients with probable Zika virus infection in French Polynesia and Brazil, the CDC reported. Most infections are asymptomatic, and symptomatic disease generally is mild.
“Microcephaly is when the head is much smaller than it’s supposed to be, which means the brain itself is much smaller”, a local doctor explained. And recently, there have been confirmed cases of Zika in several USA states.
Zika is transmitted by the female Aedes mosquito, a breed which can not survive in the low temperatures of the UK, PHE said. It causes muscle weakness, tingling in the arms and legs and sometimes temporary paralysis.
A spokesman addd: “A small number of cases have occurred through sexual transmission or by transmission from mother to foetus via the placenta”.
Colombia and El Salvador have advised couples to avoid pregnancy for the time being.
Jamaica has also told its women to avoid becoming pregnant for the next six to 12 months.
There is no antiviral treatment for the virus and no vaccine to prevent infection.
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.
The Pan American Health Organization has also acknowledged the increase in GBS cases in areas where Zika virus is present.
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In El Salvador, where the health ministry is advising women to postpone pregnancy until 2018, official figures show 96 pregnant women are suspected of having contracted the Zika virus.
