Also, health departments in counties with active cases, which include Miami-Dade and now Pinellas, are offering free Zika tests to pregnant women as well as prevention kits that include repellent.
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Brazilian and American doctors released a package of scans Tuesday showing the range of destruction that Zika virus can wreak on a developing child. The results suggest that it may take years before doctors can be sure how exactly Zika infection will affect their development growing up, and children born with seemingly normal-sized heads may still suffer silent brain damage.
The journal Radiology has published a special report, detailing the spectrum of imaging findings in babies and fetuses infected with the Zika virus.
As numerous prospective mothers began their pregnancies during late 2015 and early 2016, Longini expects to begin learning about their pregnancy outcomes in the fall. The virus is particularly risky to pregnant women because it can cause severe birth defects.
Zika can also be spread through sex, so partners of women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant should also follow precautions.
The virus is being spread locally in three places in Florida, Miami Beach, an area north of Miami and now in the St. Petersburg area.
Zika is carried by mosquitoes, which transmit the virus to humans. Of them 17 of the babies were confirmed to have been infected with Zika.
One of those is in Pinellas County, Scott said.
Right now there’s no vaccine or medicine to prevent Zika. Local mosquito transmission means that mosquitoes in the area are infected with Zika virus and are spreading it to people.
In this study, the team found that more than 80 percent of the women infected in the first trimester of pregnancy who had Zika-affected babies had the characteristic Zika rash.
One thing the study makes clear is that the effect the virus has on infants’ brains is complex and varied – and likely does not stop with the microcephaly that Zika has been known for.
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Dr. Tovar-Moll noted that the researchers are continuing to investigate the central nervous system changes induced by congenital Zika virus infection to better understand the spectrum of the changes they have seen. Almost all the confirmed infections in the study were found in infants whose mothers had developed a telltale rash, for instance, but not all cases of congenital Zika have reported the same.
