“However, Iowans traveling to areas where there is ongoing Zika virus transmission should take care to protect themselves from mosquito bites”.
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With no cure to microcephaly or vaccine against Zika, Brazil’s government has ordered out tens of thousands of troops and health workers in a door to door campaign to clean up stagnant water pools where mosquitoes breed.
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According to the press release, Zika virus testing is recommended for any pregnant women returning from the identified high-risk areas of the world.
On Feb.1, the WHO declared the Zika virus an global health emergency, the same status accredited to the deadly Ebola virus, citing the fever’s potential link to microcephaly in babies.
Aylward also said there is a “probability” that the Zika virus will have “gone through” a large portion of the country’s population by then, so many Brazilians might have developed an immunity to the disease by the start of the August 5-21 games.
The transmission of Zika virus from mother to infant during delivery is possible, so this recommendation applies to infants during the first two weeks of life whose mother traveled to those affected areas within two weeks of delivery.
Though most people show no symptoms after contracting the virus, others experience rash, red eyes, joint pain and fever.
Zika cases have soared in Caribbean countries, Mexico, South and Central America since the first instances were revealed in Brazil last May.
Among the issues they face is the need to agree on the evidence that Zika is causing the hundreds of confirmed cases in Brazil of babies born with abnormally small heads, a condition called microcephaly, and with other neurological diseases.
The CDC is now advising pregnant women to delay travel to foreign countries where Zika is being transmitted.
Zika virus usually remains in the blood of an infected person for about a week but it can be found longer in some people.
Staples said the work could provide stronger confirmation of a link, but that it would take years of scientific investigation to prove whether Zika actually causes microcephaly.
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Preliminary results of the two case control studies conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Brazilian biomedical research centers in the northeastern states of Bahia and Paraiba should be ready “this spring”, said CDC principal deputy director Anne Schuchat.
