U.S. health officials are now monitoring 279 expecting mothers in the United States and Puerto Rico, who have tested positive for Zika virus.
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Nationwide, the number of pregnant women being monitored for Zika more than doubled under the new standards, from 112 to 279, the CDC said.
It includes all pregnant women in the U.S. and its territories who have tested positive for zika infection, whether or not they developed symptoms or complications in their pregnancies, the CDC said.
Obama said there have been a little more than 500 cases of Zika in the U.S., all of which appear to be travel-related, meaning the infected individual was bitten in another country and traveled back to the U.S. He said there have been 10 cases where the virus was transmitted sexually.
Symptoms of Zika virus include mild fever, conjunctivitis, headache, joint pain and rashes.
Since February, the CDC has monitored US pregnant women infected with the Zika virus. But this number only covers pregnant women and doesn’t mention women infected with Zika that are not pregnant.
The CDC told reporters on a conference call that, so far, fewer than a dozen of the infected pregnant women it has tracked in the USA and Puerto Rico have had miscarriages or babies born with birth defects. The CDC is monitoring the women through their pregnancies to understand their outcomes. To date, more than 40 states have already had cases of travel-associated outbreaks.
Meanwhile, health officials in Africa say they’ve confirmed the Brazilian strain of the Zika virus in Cape Verde. Doctors and other health officials are watching those women with the virus carefully, even the women who haven’t shown symptoms.
The Zika virus has struck 86 New York City residents – including 14 pregnant women, according to the latest city Health Department tally.
Zika is carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
“Currently in Washington, we have tested 350 travelers who have had a concern or exposure to Zika”, said Dr. Scott Lindquist, State Communicable Disease Epidemiologist.
The WHO has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.
President Obama has requested $1.9 billion in funding to combat the Zika virus in the USA, but so far the House and Senate have favored smaller spending packages.
The data has prompted a new call by United States President Barack Obama for more funding to fight the Zika outbreak.
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The African countries should also encourage people to protect themselves against mosquito bites and sexual transmission, she said. But he said all those cases are travel-related, meaning the individuals were either infected while outside the US or contracted it from someone who traveled.
