Florida Surgeon General and Secretary of Health Dr. John Armstrong said on Wednesday that several women who have traveled to countries with local transmission of Zika have received antibody testing.
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The Florida Department of Health says all cases are associated with travel and have not been locally acquired.
The health body said that there is no evidence yet that women can transmit Zika virus to their partners, but more research is needed to understand this issue.
The Ohio Department of Health has reported the state’s first case of the Zika virus.
“The CDC still feels that mosquito-borne transmission is the most common route for Zika”, says McQuiston.
The virus is known to cause mild, flu-like symptoms in most cases, but it is also believed to cause birth defects if a pregnant woman is infected. Now, just a matter of weeks later, there have been 14 cases of sexually transmitted Zika-all in women.
Assessing the progress of Zika virus.
The Zika virus can be spread from a pregnant woman to her fetus.
The report noted that the male partner had recently travelled to an area with local Zika virus transmission.
Katherine E. Fleming-Dutra, MD, from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues updated interim guidelines for USA health care providers caring for infants with possible congenital Zika virus infection and for children with suspected infection.
Because there now is no vaccine or treatment for Zika virus, the best way to avoid Zika virus infection is to prevent mosquito bites, it said. This implies that the Zika virus not only was transmitted sexual, but its transmission happed before symptoms.
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The real concerns with Zika lie with potential birth effects when an expecting mother contracts the virus. Those symptoms include a fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes and can last between a few days and one week. A couple should either use latex condoms or abstain from sex for the duration of the pregnancy, the agency said. So far, more than 80 Zika infections diagnosed in the USA have involved people who traveled to outbreak regions. The virus has since spread to other countries and territories in South and Central America and the Caribbean.
