Thus, 14 such reports, including pregnant women, will be looked into.
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The advice either to abstain from sex or use latex condoms during sex is now being given to all pregnant women whose male partners have been to Zika-affected countries.
Gray, a three-time world champion who will be an Olympic favorite for gold in 2016, raised the issue of Zika’s link to birth defects and cases of babies being born with unusually small heads and possible brain damage.
But Tuesday’s announcement suggested that sexual transmission of Zika – normally a mosquito-borne virus – may be more of a risk…
In two of the suspected cases, the infection has been confirmed in women whose only known risk factor was sexual contact with an ill male partner who had recently traveled to an area where the virus was present, the CDC said. The Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads Zika proliferates in such neighborhoods, where omnipresent trash provides breeding grounds in discarded margarine tubs, yogurt containers and plastic bottle caps. “With these new suspected cases that we’re investigating, we’re really becoming aware that sexual transmission might happen more often than previously thought”, she said.
While news of Zika virus cases are becoming more prominent, most students at Ohio State should not be alarmed but should take precautions when traveling overseas to infected areas.
More than 4,000 reported cases of microcephaly have been registered in Brazil, among them more than 400 have been confirmed. We should expect to see more cases.
United States health officials are investigating whether 14 new Zika virus infections may been transmitted through sex, raising questions about the role of sex in spreading a disease that has been linked to birth defects in Brazil.
The agency said there is no evidence that women can transmit Zika to their sex partners, but cautioned that more research is needed.
The virus remains in the blood for an average of about one week but can stay in semen for much longer – for as long as 62 days in one case.
“There are mosquitoes biting people, and maybe there’s sexual transmission”, Foy says.
Priscila Leite, who leads the Health Ministry’s contingent, said she expects recruitment numbers to be high given the level of alarm about Zika in Brazil – particularly here in the northeast, the epicenter of the country’s Zika and microcephaly outbreaks. “I think if I was planning to have a child next month, I would be extremely uneasy about this”, said Gray, who competes in the 75-kilogram class. “Maybe that would have changed my decision (to come here)”. The CDC added Trinidad and Tobago and Marshall Islands to its travel advisory on Tuesday.
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Particles of Zika virus are colored red in this transmission electron micrograph.
