Pregnant women with plans to travel to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil where a Zika virus outbreak is underway should “consider not going”, according to travel advice issued Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Still, 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.
While mosquitoes are the primary vector for Zika infection, the CDC has confirmed six cases of sexual transmission of the virus from men to their female partners. Since the connection between Zika and the microcephaly epidemic was discovered, public health officials the world over have recommended that women who are or who may become pregnant follow CDC guidelines to prevent infection by the Zika virus. Two women had miscarriages, while two pregnancies resulted in the births of healthy infants.
For the first time since the Zika virus outbreak began, a case has been confirmed in Missoula, Montana.
The Zika virus – spread mainly by mosquito bites – is epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean. About 1 in 5 people who are infected with the Zika virus get sick and most have a mild illness.
The CDC is now sending out Zika testing kits nationwide.
“Microcephaly can be caused by other causes”, Dr. Chan said. She adds that “It is not yet known whether Zika is causing these birth defects”.
It is still unclear whether Zika infection during pregnancy is responsible for recently reported birth defects involving brain development. An estimated 80 percent of people infected have no symptoms, making it hard for pregnant women to know if they have been infected.
The county Health and Human Services Agency announced Friday afternoon that the case involved a local woman who returned home in January from a trip to Colombia, where she became infected. These cases included both of the miscarriages, both of the terminations and the case of the infant with microcephaly, along with one of the pregnancies that is still continuing, the report said. The agency, which has warned pregnant women not to travel to 34 countries and territories so far, estimates that about 500,000 women each year travel to the United States from the Zika zone.
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The baby with microcephaly was born to a mother who noticed Zika symptoms in her first trimester.
