Aedes aegypti mosquitoes sit in a petri dish at the Fiocruz institute in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. KDHE says the most common symptoms of Zika virus disease are fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis (red eyes).
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“Men who either live in or travel to active Zika transmission area and who have a pregnant sex partner should either correctly use condoms during sex or abstain from sex during the rest of the pregnancy”, urged Frieden.
“In addition, asymptomatic pregnant women who have traveled to Zika-affected areas should be tested for the Zika virus between 2-12 weeks post travel”.
The United States will see an increasing number of travel-related cases of the Zika virus, as the epidemic that is ravaging Brazil continues to spread, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
Health officials are looking into a possible link between Zika infections in pregnant women and a rare birth defect where babies are born with abnormally small heads.
The CDC says in the US the only confirmed cases of Zika have been transmitted through sexual contact.
Zika virus is mosquito-borne and is mainly spread through the bite of an infected mosquito.
Gonzalo Vazquez, an environmental science researcher at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, said any transmission beyond Florida is likely to remain tightly contained because most tourists returning north aren’t likely to be bitten by any mosquitoes during the winter.
Several news outlets reported on Friday that Brazilian researchers, where the outbreak began, have found traces of the virus not only in semen, but urine and saliva.
The CDC said that abstaining from sex while pregnant is the safest way to go, but condoms have been recommended since late Tuesday for people who have traveled to certain countries.
“There’s no specific treatment for the symptoms of the Zika virus”, adds Fulbright. This adds to evidence from previous studies of a Zika outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013 and 2014 that also detected the virus in these bodily fluids.
Brazil reports more than 4,000 microcephaly cases since October.
The World Health Organisation said the Zika virus is spreading explosively.
Frieden said no one knows what would happen if a pregnant woman was exposed to Zika virus through sex, so it’s not worth taking the chance.
Paulo Gadelha suggested pregnant women avoid kissing people other than a regular partner or sharing cutlery, glasses and plates with people who have symptoms of the virus.
The CDC has made Zika a top priority, not only in the USA but in affected Latin American nations.
An Australian child has become the second person in Queensland to be infected with Zika, after a family trip to Samoa.
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The scientists also said that further research was required to determine whether the virus would be transmissible through saliva and if yes, then to what extent can the transmission be expected. The virus has also been speculatively tied to Guillain-Barre disease, which can cause paralysis in adults.
