Texas health officials say there have been no reported cases of Zika transmitted by mosquitoes in Texas. “The child, unfortunately, died shortly after birth”, Doctor Shah explained in a press conference held with Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. Some 50 Republican former national security officials signed an open letter calling Trump the most reckless candidate in history, prompting a counterattack from Trump, who said the signers share blame with Clinton for making the world “a mess” and fueling the Islamic State group’s formation.
Advertisement
Clinton, speaking to television cameras, said that people should visit a website set up by the federal government that contains Zika information.
“I directed the Texas Department of Health Services to work closely with our local partners as well as with our partners at the Center for Disease Control to prevent a Zika outbreak here in Texas as well as to prepare the strongest possible Zika response plan”.
A total of 21 Zika cases in the Miami area are believed to be linked to mosquitoes carrying the virus in the Wynwood neighborhood.
Clinton cited daughter Chelsea’s early concerns about the virus while she was pregnant and the fact that she sent aides on a fact-finding mission to Puerto Rico to learn more about the progression of the virus.
The health authorities in the U.S. State of Texas on Tuesday confirmed a Zika-related death of a newborn girl, the first of its kind in the country. This is Hernando and Monroe counties first travel-related cases of Zika. Two involve pregnant women.
Zika often causes no symptoms, but is particularly risky for pregnant women because it can lead to the birth defect microcephaly, in which infants are born with unusually small heads and deformed brains.
On Tuesday, Clinton made a stop in Miami, ground zero for mosquito-borne Zika transmission in the Sunshine State.
Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is running for re-election, has said that he opposes funding the nation’s largest abortion provider and added that babies whose mothers contract Zika do not deserve to be aborted.
In all the cases, the mother also had either documented Zika infection, a Zika-like rash during pregnancy or had given birth to a baby with an abnormally small head. Zika can also be transmitted sexually.
The finding that the affected babies all had patterns of peripheral nerve damage, which had caused contracting of the joints, was “consistent with our knowledge that Zika virus is particularly damaging to nervous tissue”, he said.
Advertisement
Currently, more than 7,300 people in the US have been diagnosed with Zika, including 1,825 in the continental USA and Hawaii.
