Dominica is reporting its first case of the Zika virus that has been rapidly spreading across the hemisphere.
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Among Florida’s confirmed cases, two people are still exhibiting symptoms, which can include fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes lasting one week to 10 days.
If a woman is infected with Zika virus in the first trimester of pregnancy, she has a 1 in 100 risk of microcephaly, researchers estimate.
Zika is being investigated as a possible agent in cases of microcephaly, a birth defect and condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads and brain damage, and also in cases of Guillain-Barre, a rare condition that sometimes results in temporary paralysis.
The US Virgin Islands Department of Health has confirmed four additional cases of zika on St Croix, bringing the total to 11 cases.
The U.S.is not now on the list of places with active Zika virus transmission, so advice for traveling is a little trickier. USA health officials are telling pregnant women to avoid travel to Latin America and Caribbean countries with outbreaks of a tropical illness linked to birth defects.
Accumulating evidence links maternal Zika virus infection with congenital microcephaly, miscarriages, and other adverse fetal outcomes. A recent study by American and Brazilian scientists reported that abnormalities were seen in 29 percent of fetuses carried by a group of women who were confirmed to have been infected with Zika during pregnancy. The newest case on Monday is in Miami-Dade County and mosquito technicians are out in full force combing the area to make sure mosquitoes don’t multiply.
In the study in the Lancet medical journal which analysed a 2013-14 Zika outbreak in French Polynesia, researchers said the risk of microcephaly is about 1 for every 100 women infected with the virus during the first trimester of pregnancy.
Zika is an infectious disease spread by the bite of a mosquito and now circulating in many warm-weather areas outside the United States.
He argued that the CDC should be even more specific and report where Zika has been detected. “While all 62 cases of Zika in Florida are travel related, it is important we take proactive measures to prevent the spread of the Zika virus”.
Dengue, along with the chikungunya virus, are carried by the same family of mosquitos that spread Zika.
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The patient is a 21-year-old Havana woman who had not traveled outside Cuba, state media reported. For a list of areas actively transmitting Zika, check here.
