MARVIN RECINOS/AFP/Getty Images US health authorities are investigating 14 new cases of Zika virus that may have been transmitted sexually, suggesting a larger role than previously considered for the spread of the mosquito-borne virus.
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After someone in Dallas contracted the virus in February by having sex with someone who’d travelled to an affected region, the CDC says 14 more possible cases have occurred, as per CNN.
In all the cases, women in the continental United States had sex with men who had traveled to countries where the virus is circulating and the travelers reported symptoms within two weeks of the onset of their non-traveling female partners symptoms.
“There are mosquitoes biting people, and maybe there’s sexual transmission”, Foy says.
USA and Brazilian health workers seeking to determine if the Zika virus is causing a surge in birth defects ran into the chaotic reality of northeastern Brazil on their study’s first day Tuesday. And because most people will have been infected by mosquitoes, it hasn’t mattered much.
But an association has been made between the virus and an increase in the number of newborns with a rare neurological condition in countries experiencing Zika virus outbreaks. “The kit includes the mosquito net, the repellent spray, the long sleeve shirt and there is other stuff inside the kit, so when they get here [the CDC] we will start distributing them to the pregnant mums in all the health centres”.
All of the newly-reported cases of sexual transmission have been in the US.
The biggest concern is among pregnant women, who often unwillingly transfer the virus to their unborn child.
The CDC said there is still no evidence the Zika virus can be transmitted from person to person through casual contact.
The CDC isn’t sure how long the risk of sexually transmitted Zika lasts, but said they are looking into answering that question.
The health sector will continue to strengthen the supervision at ports of entry of passengers from countries and territories with the Zika virus, the General Department of Preventive Medicine (GDPM) under the Ministry of Health announced yesterday.
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With no cure or vaccine for Zika, the only way to deal with the virus at present is to reduce the population of the Aedes mosquito that also carries the dengue and chicungunya viruses. “We were concerned enough that we thought it was important to share that information…” CDC added two more destinations to its caution list Tuesday: Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean, and the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.
