The Food and Drug Administration on Friday took the radical step of recommending that blood donations in all 50 states and USA territories be screened for the Zika virus.
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So far, the FDA is asking blood banks in 11 states to begin testing for Zika within the next four weeks: Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina and Texas.
Zika has been found in Central and South America, and on some Caribbean islands. Only 29 of those cases pertain to acquisition via mosquitoes, with 2,487 associated with travel and 22 with sexual transmission.
The new case was reported hours after federal officials requested that all US blood centers to start screening for the mosquito-borne virus.
Donor blood can be another important source of Zika transmission. There are a total of 2,517 cases of Zika in the USA states and D.C., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with 9,011 more in US territories.
Dirk Dittmer, PhD, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the UNC School of Medicine, has developed a diagnostic test for Zika that is now being used in his lab. Dittmer is one of more than 10 different groups of researchers at the UNC School of Medicine now researching the Zika virus – its maternal-fetal transmission, sexual transmission, epidemiology, and vaccine development.
Her sexual partner had returned from the Dominican Republic about three weeks before, but he wasn’t showing any symptoms.
In Florida, the virus has been spread by local mosquitoes, infecting more than 40 people.
“There’s not been any documental local transmission by mosquitoes of Zika virus in Maryland to date”, Brooks says.
The FDA has authorized use of two experimental blood screening tests for Zika, one made by Roche and another from Hologic Inc. and Grifols.
Testing, however, confirmed that he had been exposed to Zika, researchers said.
Only one other case has been reported in which a man without symptoms might have transmitted Zika to his female partner.
The risk of blood transmission is considered likely based on the most current scientific evidence of how Zika and similar viruses are spread, FDA officials have said.
“We have a consent form which the donor will have to sign for the testing”, says Hooper. Previously it had recommended that only areas with active Zika transmission screen blood. Blood centers routinely screen donations for HIV, hepatitis, West Nile virus and other blood-borne viruses. The virus is particularly risky to pregnant women because it can cause severe birth defects.
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The kit includes insect repellant, information about the Zika virus, condoms and “mosquito dunks”, which kill unborn mosquitoes when dissolved in standing water.
