The first baby in the continental us with Zika-related birth defects was born to a Honduran woman who said early signs of the disease were overlooked by doctors in her native country.
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“He said scans on Friday showed the girl was underweight for her gestational age and doctors did not want to risk further exposure to the virus, so they delivered the baby, the woman’s second child, by caesarean section on Tuesday”.
In this case, the infant’s mother had contracted the Zika virus outside the USA and was visiting the country when she gave birth, doctors said today, noting that it was “too early” to tell what the child’s life expectancy would be.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are more than 300 pregnant women in the USA with “laboratory evidence of possible Zika virus infection”. An ultrasound confirmed low birth weight and severe microcephaly, which means that the baby’s brain is not fully developed.
Majority of Zika virus cases, along with microcephaly, have occurred in Latin America, with Brazil accounting for the most cases – around 5,000.
According to the World Health Organization’s most recent Zika report, 10 countries have reported births of infants with microcephaly or other brain anomalies linked to maternal Zika infection during pregnancy.
At the same time, there have been more than 1,300 suspected cases.
“T$3 he woman knew before coming to visit relatives in New Jersey that, based on blood test results, she had the virus”.
Just this week, Texas reported its first locally acquired case of chikungunya, a virus closely related to Zika that’s spread by the same mosquitoes.
“She is trying her best to cope with this emotionally”, Al-Khan said at a news conference.
It’s unclear when the woman arrived in New Jersey and when USA doctors realized her baby had microcephaly. The baby, a girl, was delivered Tuesday. In the past year, infections in pregnant women have been strongly linked to fetal deaths and to potentially devastating birth defects.
It is unclear when she came to the United States, but according to Fox News, the woman was diagnosed with Zika while she was still in Honduras and came to New Jersey – where she has family – for treatment. The types of mosquitoes that transmit Zika are not found in the Pacific Northwest, so local health officials do not expect Zika virus to spread here. The baby born in Hawaii also had microcephaly.
“If you’re thinking about becoming pregnant then we recommend that you wait two months if you haven’t been sick, and six months if you have been sick”, Frieden said.
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They also advise that pregnant women or women who may become pregnant avoid unprotected sex and that men who might be infected avoid having unprotected sex with their partners. Dr. Alvarez expressed, “It tells you that Zika is real”.
