As the weather warms up and more mosquitoes start to come out the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is fielding more questions about the Zika virus. Only been a few adult deaths have been linked to Zika, and only about one in five infected will experience any symptoms. Because of this, the CDC has advised pregnant women to stay away from countries where Zika is circulating.
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The CDC just announced that men can contract Zika through unprotected anal sex with other men infected with the virus. Doctors collected blood, semen, urine, and saliva sample from both men and narrowed their infections down to either Zika virus or dengue fever. To help prevent spreading Zika from sex, use condoms every time you have sex. One of the reasons the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Zika virus a public health emergency of worldwide concern on February 1, 2016 was that a causal relationship was “strongly suspected” and hence required global efforts to investigate and understand it. Even in its last Zika situation report of April 7, the WHO stressed that there is scientific consensus that the virus causes microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome (a disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system).
Yet Zika is associated with potentially devastating consequences for pregnant women and their unborn babies.
The March of Dimes is urging congress to provide immediate new funding to fight the spread of the Zika virus.
Until Zika, “there has never been a mosquito-borne virus that could cause serious defects on a such a large scale”, said Tom Frieden, director of the CDC.
“Anal sex is practiced not only by men who have sex with men, but also by heterosexual couples, and so it’s important to consider not the person’s sexual preference but the activity in which they’re engaging”, says Brooks.
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In this case, it involved a man from Dallas, Texas who had sex with man who had been infected with the virus while traveling in Venezuela. We are advising Vermonters who are planning to travel to check to see if their destination is a Zika-affected area, and to take all precautions against mosquito bites. “A week after his return, his longtime partner, who had not traveled outside the country, became ill”.
