There are 279 pregnant women in the United States and in USA territories who have Zika, health officials announced on Friday.
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The new figure appears to be a dramatic jump from the 110 pregnant women with confirmed Zika cases that the CDC reported as of May 11.
State health officials would not say whether the Maricopa County woman is pregnant, citing patient confidentiality.
The new guidelines come as the Florida Department of Health reported Friday three more Zika virus cases in Florida – one in Miami-Dade, one in Osceola and one in Pinellas counties.
“That is a total of 279 pregnant women in US states and territories”, the CDC said in a statement.
In Brazil, 1,271 babies have been born with unusually small heads and deformed brains since the outbreak of Zika began there a year ago. An older woman was infected while she was in one of the affected areas outside the the U.S.
Only an estimated 1 in 5 people infected with Zika develop symptoms – fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes – which usually last no more than a week.
“To the extent that we’re not handling this thing on the front end, we’re going to have bigger problems on the back end”, Mr Obama said.
Zika is a flavivirus transmitted by the bite of a mosquito.
Most of these women are still pregnant, officials said.
Chessher says a pregnant woman from Garland traveled to a Central America sometime in late March.
On Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama told leading health officials, he’s asking for almost two billion dollars in emergency funding.
The decision follows reports of miscarriages and babies born with birth defects to women who had no recollection of having experienced Zika symptoms, she said. It can be found in the southern United States, but there’s no evidence that they’ve been spreading the virus in the US yet.
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On Thursday, the Senate passed a bill with $1.1 billion to fight the virus, and the White House has expressed its willingness to accept that amount, though it is less than the $1.9 billion requested by Obama. The House on Wednesday approved only $622 million, meaning hard negotiations remain over how much money to devote to fighting the virus and whether to cut funding allocated to study and combat the Ebola virus to help pay for it.
