But for pregnant women, the virus can cause microcephaly in the developing fetus, so that the baby is born with an abnormally small head and significant brain damage. They knew which trimester these mothers-to-be had become infected. Although the number of cases of birth defects appears lower in Colombia so far, “it is premature to conclude there is a difference” in the rates of affected babies, she says. When the outbreak of the Zika virus first began in Brazil during May 2015, scientists knew of no clear link between the virus and this debilitating birth defect.
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Bini Silver, chief administrative officer of the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center, said its camps will be following closely what the CDC and other health authorities recommend, including using more bug spray than usual and staying away from areas where mosquitoes breed.
Although no one has yet contracted the virus from mosquitoes in the US – last week’s birth was to a woman infected in Honduras – experts say that could change as the weather warms and mosquitoes capable of transmitting Zika spread.
In a more concerning finding, the scientists also reported that four women who had no symptoms of a Zika infection during pregnancy gave birth to babies who had microcephaly.
“This is really adding weight to existing data that asymptomatic infection is also associated with microcephaly”, said Margaret Honein, chief of the birth defects branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and one of the authors of the report.
Colombian and US researchers studied nearly 12,000 pregnancies occurring in 2015 among women in Colombia, a country that is endemic for the mosquito that spreads the Zika virus. There have been 18 tests in Sarasota, but son far no cases of Zika have been confirmed in Sarasota or Manatee counties.
The total number of pregnant women who have been monitored is 38, with nine having met the previous CDC case definition, the FDOH said. The CDC has been talking with state and local agencies for months about how to prepare, encouraging them to bolster mosquito control programs and working with clinicians to be on the lookout for symptoms, which include fever and rashes.
The trigger for the step-up to phase 2 would be a single locally acquired case or a case cluster in a single household.
Much as with sunscreen, “you have to use the long-lasting ones, not the ones that last two or three hours and then evaporate”, Edelman said. Without adequate funding now, he said, “we can’t protect women and children”. “Based on what we’re observing, I don’t think it’s negligible at all”, said Dr. Nielsen, who is a professor of clinical pediatrics in the division of infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Health officials aren’t expecting big outbreaks like in Latin America and the Caribbean. Another challenge: many people with Zika do not show symptoms.
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The study was published June 10 in the journal EBioMedicine.
