Katherine E. Fleming-Dutra, M.D., from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues updated interim guidelines for USA health care providers caring for infants with possible congenital Zika virus infection and for children with suspected infection. The report suggests that Zika virus can cross the placental barrier, but does not prove that the virus causes microcephaly, as more research is needed to understand the link.
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Florida’s Surgeon General will testify before Congress on Wednesday about the state’s response and preparations to the Zika virus. Health officials advise women who are pregnant or who might become pregnant to consider delaying travel or to be especially careful in avoiding mosquito bites in Zika-affected areas.
One new case of Zika was confirmed in Miami-Dade and one in Orange County over the weekend, state health officials said Monday, bringing the statewide total to 28 incidences of the viral infection.
Zika has been spreading through Brazil, but is also being transmitted in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.
Zika virus may be transmitted from a pregnant woman to a fetus during pregnancy or at the time of birth.
While 56 cases of microcephaly have been confirmed in Paraiba since the spike was first noticed in October, authorities are investigating another 423 suspected cases, according to Health Ministry data.
While ordinary people will not show violent symptoms after contracting the disease, infected pregnant women might give birth to babies with microcephaly or “smaller than usual heads”, so health officials should make extra efforts to alert pregnant women, Chou said. The idea is to determine whether mothers whose babies have microcephaly were infected with Zika and, if so, when during their pregnancies.
A 16-member team of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started work in Joao Pessoa, in northeastern Brazil, that is the epicenter of the country’s Zika outbreak.
He is among 82 people nationwide who contracted the mosquito-borne infection while traveling to areas where the virus has exploded.
The number of reported cases of newborn babies with microcephaly in Brazil in 2015 has increased twenty-fold compared with previous years.
There is no vaccine or treatment for Zika.
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Zika contagion occurs through mosquito bites, although there have been few cases of sexual transmission.
