A 31-year-old woman diagnosed with the Zika virus gave birth to a baby girl at Hackensack University Medical Center Tuesday, health officials said.
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Officials confirmed that the baby suffers from Zika-linked microcephaly, a condition where the child’s brain and head are only partially developed.
“The baby cried as much as tears came down my eyes”, said Al-Khan, director of the division of maternal fetal medicine and surgery at the Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.
Dr. Abdulla Al-Khan, director of Maternal Fetal Medicine and Surgery at Hackensack UMC, said the woman chose to give birth in the USA because she thinks her baby would have better care in the country, according to WPIX-TV.
Earlier this month, US health officials reported that the number of pregnant women in the United States infected with the Zika virus had tripled because cases were now being counted in a more comprehensive way.
“This is the second known case of a baby born with Zika-related birth defects in the United States”.
The CDC reports there are 310 pregnant women now in America with laboratory evidence of the Zika virus.
Doctors performed an ultrasound on the mother last Friday, and said to CNN that the child had “significant microcephaly”. The real concern is if mosquitoes begin spreading the virus within the U.S., and unfortunately it’s a possibility, now that a number of cases have been confirmed on the mainland.
In other developments, experts from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) yesterday estimated that more than 216 million traveler-visits are made to the United States each year from Zika-hit countries. Babies born with Zika-related birth defects can’t pass it on to anyone else and it’s believed women with Zika can only infect their fetus when pregnant. Once there, doctors and the CDC realized that, in fact, the woman was infected with the virus. The first was born in Hawaii to a woman who had lived in Brazil, where the Zika epidemic began in the Americas. “You can not allow the brain to regenerate itself”, said Al-Khan.
Yesterday the World Health Organisation (WHO) updated its advice to recommend that couples who have been in Zika-hit areas should wait at least eight weeks before trying to conceive, to ensure the virus has cleared their bodies. Considering the effects of the illness are even more devastating for women, especially pregnant women, he advised any athletes contemplating participating in the Olympics to educate themselves and their family members. Scientists have been able to improve diagnostic tests for the virus, but we still don’t have a vaccine.
The virus can be contracted through mosquito bites and can also be sexually transmitted.
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The Zika virus is transmitted through the bite of infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Congress is ready to act on President Barack Obamas long-stalled request for emergency funds to combat the Zika virus, which has been linked to serious birth defects and other major health problems. “The answer is most likely not, because we don’t have a lot of cases within the United States”.
