Dallas County Health and Human Services said it received confirmation that a Texas resident contracted the virus after having sexual contact with a person who returned from a country where Zika was present.
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Ministers have insisted the risk posed by the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus to the British public remains “extremely low”.
The person infected did not travel and acquired the virus from someone who had been to Venezuela, the county health department said on its twitter feed.
No details about the Dallas County patients were released for privacy reasons.
According to the CDC website, spread of the virus through blood transfusion and sexual contact in general have been reported. This has raised questions, as Jezebel reports, as to whether or not countries where Zika cases have been detected and where abortion is illegal will change conservative stances on abortion despite the possibility of babies becoming infected.
The type of mosquitoes that can carry Zika are able to reach parts of Texas, but local health officials say they have not seen any evidence of mosquitoes carrying the virus.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Zika to be an global public health emergency on Monday.
Health officials have noted a suspicious link between Zika’s arrival in Brazil a year ago and a surge in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads.
Zika is transmitted through sex when one partner has caught the virus in affected areas around the world.
Zika was first identified in 1947 in Uganda.
The illness brings with it a rash, fever and joint pain.
The Philippine authorities are doing the same and, like Japan, the Philippines has advised women who are pregnant or planning to conceive to avoid countries on the Zika watchlist. Sexual partners can protect themselves by using condoms to prevent spreading sexually transmitted infections.
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The symptoms of Zika are usually mild, although it can occasionally result in a condition causing paralysis.
