“The March of Dimes tries to support those families with education, preparing them for what to expect while they’re in the NICU”, Butscher said. All of the Texas cases involved people infected overseas except for a man in Dallas who contracted the virus through sexual contact. But how serious is the threat of contracting the virus? Last week, the CDC reported that six women with the virus had delivered babies with birth defects.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will not confirm any diagnosis publicly until after the babies are born.
As Zika can also be transmitted through sexual activity with an infected male partner, pregnant women and women who could be pregnant should be sure to use a condom when having sex with a male partner who may be infected with Zika.
“Her husband traveled to a country with active Zika virus transmission and has tested positive for the virus, becoming Ohio’s 15th travel-associated case”, the release stated. The mosquito-borne illness that’s especially unsafe for the babies of pregnant women who contract it has recently entered the United States, and New York City has reported that 5 percent of its population is infected, according to The New York Daily News.
The World Health Organization predicts that as many as 4 million people across the Americas will contract Zika through early 2017, and that its spread to other abortion-restrictive countries is inevitable.
Fears about the Zika virus are still spreading – including in the Coastal Empire and Lowcountry.
Anxious about the possible effect of Zika on their developing fetuses, pregnant women in Latin America where the virus is spreading increasingly are seeking abortions, according to new research.
All cases reported to date in the US have been associated with travel to a Zika-affected area.
The research, published as a letter Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that online orders for abortion pills in seven countries experiencing Zika outbreaks increased after health officials in those nations warned the virus might cause severe birth defects. For this reason, many people may not realize they have been infected. Although, no case of local transmission of the virus has been reported in the United States yet. Dr. Roderick Diggs, an OB/Gyn physician at Houston Methodist San Jacinto Hospital, said while the virus is primarily spread by infected mosquitoes, it can also be sexually transmitted. Some will have microcephaly or other brain-related birth defects.
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“We simply don’t know, and may not know for years, if there will be long-term consequences on brain development”, Frieden said.
