Canada’s chief public health officer confirmed yesterday that the country’s first sexually transmitted Zika virus case has been detected in Ontario. So far in Dallas, the six confirmed cases of the virus have been transmitted sexually or by a mosquito from overseas.
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Identity of the patient is not disclosed.
“She will amplify the important steps for everyone – especially pregnant women and women of childbearing age – to take to protect against Zika”, HHS wrote in a release Monday announcing the trip.
The Zika virus is spread through the Aedes mosquito, which also spreads West Nile and dengue fever.
Bay County Mosquito Control is on the lookout this year for the Zika virus, after U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention warnings about the mosquito-borne menace.
The person who contracted it is from Ontario, and is suspected to have contracted the virus from a sexual partner diagnosed with Zika after travelling to an affected country. The World Health Organization has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis in adults.
However, the virus had been potentially linked in Brazil to thousands of cases of abnormally small heads in infants born to women who were infected while pregnant.
Canada has no confirmed cases of locally acquired Zika virus through mosquitoes, and the overall risk in this country remains low, said the agency.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed April 13 that the virus causes microcephaly and other birth defects. “Every citizen can help keep Zika out of Baltimore by eliminating mosquito breeding grounds in their communities and taking precautions to prevent mosquito bites”. Though the virus itself was no longer conclusively detectable in either of the men’s samples, a more thorough test showed that the man who had not traveled had been infected with Zika.
Consider using condoms with any partner for six months.
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Three people have died of Zika virus, according to the Health Ministry.
