The Louisiana Department of Health is reporting five new cases of the Zika virus.
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The infected person recently returned from traveling to an area with on-going Zika transmission by mosquitoes. The woman was not pregnant.
It also can be sexually transmitted by infected males, so DE health officials are urging men who have been diagnosed with Zika or have symptoms of the virus to use condoms for at least six months after symptoms first appeared. Zika also can be spread during sex (by both males and females). So far, there have been no confirmed cases of a Zika infection from a mosquito bite in the United States, although officials expect mosquitoes will start spreading it in Southern states, which begs the question, “Can domesticated animals, like cats and dogs, catch or carry the virus?”
But the CDC is helping Utah investigate a case in which an elderly man was infected while traveling, then died back home in Utah in June and had 100,000 times the amount of virus in his blood as has been found in typical patients.
“Local residents are not at risk for contracting Zika virus unless they travel to a Zika-affected area, including Central and South America, or have unprotected sexual relations with someone who has the virus”, said Dr. Amy Person, health officer for the district, in a statement. It has also been implicated in miscarriages and diseases like Guillain-Barre, a neurological disorder that causes temporary paralysis.
About 134 people have been tested for the virus in DE and two pregnant women have received “indeterminate” results which means that it is unclear whether or not they tested positive.
As of July 14, 400 pregnant women in the United States and 378 in USA territories had evidence of Zika infection, the CDC reported, and more than 1,400 people had been infected in the United States.
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Though the virus can be passed from mother to baby, it cannot be spread through breast milk, coughing, sneezing or kissing.
