“With mosquito season upon us, these Zika dollars must get out the door now to help control the spread of this disease”.
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It also “really heightens our concern” that even women who don’t feel sick can pass a Zika infection to their babies, and the babies can develop defects, Honein said.
None of the 600 women gave birth to a baby with microcephaly or other brain abnormalities. At the time, two were still pregnant.
He said the total number of defects out of Colombia appear to be surprisingly low, however.
Last month, the CDC announced it was monitoring about 300 pregnant women with possible Zika infection, but declined to provide details about the pregnancy outcomes.
Three others lost babies with birth defects, either through miscarriage, stillbirth or termination of pregnancy.
Earlier in the year, there were only a few known cases of microcephaly in the United States.
The early signs of what the United States may experience from Zika infections among pregnant women are worrying, admitted Dr. Denise Jamieson, co-lead for the CDC’s Zika pregnancy and birth defects task force. However, Zika infection in pregnant women is associated with congenital microcephaly and fetal loss. If local infections on USA soil do occur, then the CDC officials will go to the area and destroy the mosquito-breeding sites.
“No county in Florida is impervious to the Zika threat”, said Sarasota-based Dr. Vilma Vega, an infectious disease specialist. Four of the babies looked at in the study had microcephaly, yet their mothers showed no signs of the disease. They also say there’s no doubt that, like many other infections, it can cause rare neurological complications including Guillain-Barre syndrome.
All of the women were infected with Zika by travel, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The researchers claim greatest risk to infants comes in early pregnancy.
“We don’t have the full picture for how Zika impacts pregnancy”, Spong says, especially when it comes to asymptomatic infections.
Officials aren’t expecting big outbreaks of the mosquito-borne virus like in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Authorities in Brazil have confirmed more than 1,400 cases of microcephaly in babies whose mothers were exposed to Zika during pregnancy. Though the Senate approved $1.1 billion in funding for research and prevention, the House only eked out $622 million, funding that was largely raided from Ebola programs.
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While the virus can be passed from a pregnant mother to her unborn child during pregnancy or delivery, it is now unknown how likely it is that this will happen. Most of the pregnancies are ongoing.
