Two of the pregnancies with the virus, which is suspected of causing severe birth defects, have ended in miscarriage, two more were aborted, and one baby was born with severe microcephaly. But in Brazil, officials are investigating a possible link to babies born with unusually small heads, a rare birth defect called microcephaly that can signal underlying brain damage.
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The proportion of USA pregnancies that appear to have been harmed due to the mosquito-borne infection “is unexpected, and greater than we would have expected”, Dr. Denise Jamieson, co-lead of the Pregnancy and Birth Defects Team with the CDC Zika Virus Response Team, said during the news conference.
According to the CDC, one of the women who aborted her baby received an ultrasound when the child was 20 weeks old. Because of this, the CDC recommends that men who live in or travel to Zika infected areas should not have sex with a pregnant partner. The common symptoms include fever, rash, joint and muscle pain, and headache.
World Health Organization said it has not yet been proven Zika is causing any of them, but says the evidence is strengthening. He also said that scientists don’t yet know which stage of the pregnancy, if any, is most vulnerable for a fetus exposed to Zika virus.
That, and the number of abnormalities the agency discovered in the unborn children of pregnant women, caused Frieden to reiterate forcefully the agency’s recommendations about prevention.
Officials say the Missoula woman who contracted the disease is not pregnant. No instances of direct transmission via mosquito have yet taken place in the United States.
“At this point, we just receive aggregate information from the Public Health Agency (of Canada), so all we can say is that out of the 14 people who have tested positive in Canada, there is one who resides in Saskatchewan”, said Dr. Saqib Shahab, the province’s chief medical health officer.
The virus is spread through mosquito bites. As of Wednesday, there have been 107 cases of Zika in 24 states and Washington, DC in people who traveled to countries where the virus is circulating, and 40 cases in Puerto Rico, the worst-hit of the U.S. island territories. OR public health officials reported a new sexually-transmitted case in a woman on Friday morning.
It was only six weeks ago that the CDC announced its first travel advisory for parts of South and Central America, and the Caribbean, in relation to Zika. We have been saying this: “Zika is guilty until proven innocent”.
You and your male partner should strictly follow steps to prevent mosquito bites.
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Two of the nine women are still pregnant. “CDC advises men with pregnant sex partners to use condoms or abstain from sex for the duration of pregnancy”. So the cases of sexual transmission stand out.
