There have been no reported cases of Zika virus in Utah.
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NEW YORK (AP) – U.S. health officials issued guidelines Friday to prevent the sexual transmission of the Zika virus, telling men who have been to outbreak areas to use condoms during sex with pregnant women. The people most seriously affected are pregnant women and their fetuses.
The agency on Friday also widened its guidelines for pregnant women, saying that even those who do not have Zika symptoms should get tested after returning from countries affected by the outbreak.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention anticipates the numbers of cases of the virus in USA travelers to increase, which could create a spread of the disease, however it is unlikely to become widespread on the US mainland.
The United States of America has 50 confirmed cases of Zika after the World Health Organisation declared it a global health emergency.
Earlier this week, a suspected case of sexually transmitted Zika emerged in Dallas, prompting concerns that the disease has found a new way to spread.
The warning comes because health officials are concerned about a strong link between Zika virus infection during pregnancy and a birth defect called microcephaly, in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and face lifelong cognitive impairments.
The virus may have crossed over from the Aedes aegypti mosquito to the “much more common” Culex genus, which breeds throughout the Americas and parts of Africa and Asia, says Nadeem Badshah in The Times. Transmission through blood transfusion and sexual contact have also been reported.
Stokes says he doesn’t expect to find mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus in Louisiana, but people who catch it somewhere else, may bring it back to the state.
The CDC urged couples in which a partner is not pregnant to “consider using condoms consistently and correctly during sex or abstaining from sexual activity”.
The Latin American country is one of many in the region where the disease is spreading exponentially.
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Florida’s warm climate, year-round mosquitoes and revolving door of worldwide travelers make it vulnerable to the Zika virus. There have been reports of birth defects and other severe health consequences. Then, that mosquito would have to bite another person.
