Meanwhile, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton detailed her proposed funding plan for public health emergencies, while doctors in Brazil describe prolonged Zika viremia in an infant.
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About four out of five of those infected with Zika virus do not become ill, which makes it tough to determine whose blood might carry the pathogen, the agency noted. Under those recommendations, Florida and Puerto Rico, as well as other areas, began screening blood for Zika contamination, a strategy the FDA says has been effective in identifying infected blood. Since the end of July, that has included parts of Florida.
Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that can also be transmitted through sex and blood.
These results and the fact that the mother’s symptoms of Zika infection appeared in the seventh month of pregnancy – when it is thought that the damage to the fetus is less severe than when the infection occurs earlier in pregnancy – led to a first diagnosis of mild microcephaly. Mr. Petrie said pregnant women can call the MRCU and the unit will go out to treat the area and hopefully kill off any Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, responsible for carrying the Zika virus, in the same way they would treat around a home of someone who is infected to prevent the spread of the virus.
In this case, the baby’s mother developed Zika-like symptoms – including a rash, fever, pink eye, headache and joint pain – at 26 weeks of pregnancy, at the end of the second trimester, according to the study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine.
It’s unclear if the person with Zika virus in Defiance County is being treated for any symptoms.
Zika cases have been confirmed in both Brazos and Walker County.
He explained that some persons may show no signs while 20 percent of persons who contract the virus may be symptomatic.
Dr. Mary Ashley Cain, an OBGYN at the University of South Florida who specializes in high risk pregnancies, has cared for pregnant woman with travel-related cases of Zika. The state now has more than 40 cases, according to Florida’s health department. Idaho has had no confirmed cases of Zika virus infection reported prior to this case. Several testing sites are already voluntarily using the technology, including blood centers in Texas. They predicted there would be – at most – 16 cases at the games.
Since February, U.S. blood centres have been turning away people who have recently travelled to areas with Zika outbreaks, under a previous FDA directive. Blood banks and donation centers adhere to those guidelines.
If no screening test is available, blood collection agencies can purify blood platelets or plasma using one of the FDA’s approved methods.
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The new guidance applies immediately in Florida and in territories with at least one case of a locally acquired infection.
