A New York City woman who became infected with the Zika virus on a trip outside the United States passed the infection to her boyfriend during sex, city health officials reported. In all other known cases, the transmission was male to female. These cases involve 11 countries, involving the USA and France. The next day, she began exhibiting symptoms of Zika (fever, fatigue, a rash, back pain) and soon tested positive for Zika.
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Ever since the first documented case of the virus in Brazil past year, the intricacies of how the virus works continue to baffle scientists.
Zika, carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, is associated with a birth defect called microcephaly which causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and brain damage.
Recent evidence of sexual transmission of the virus from men to women and men to men is also being studied.
Federal preparedness funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paid for the 2,500 kits, which cost about $15 apiece to assemble, according to the health department. Both tested positive for the virus. He went to the same doctor who had diagnosed Zika infection in the woman.
The CDC said it is updating its guidelines because the current advice to prevent sexual transmission of Zika “is based on the assumption that transmission occurs from a male partner to a receptive partner”. Seven days the two had sex, the woman’s partner also developed similar symptoms and visited the same doctor. The mosquito that transmits the Zika virus in Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Puerto Rico is not present in Broome County at this time.
Brooks said the new guidance will urge pregnant women with female partners who have traveled to or lived in places where Zika is spreading to use barrier methods during sex or abstain from sex for the duration of the pregnancy. The New York woman was not pregnant, reports Washington Post. The man was uncircumcised, which always raises the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted viral diseases, such as HIV and herpes, Brooks said.
Pennsylvania health officials are offering Zika prevention kits created to safeguard pregnant women from the mosquito-borne virus.
Dr. Davies shared the North Carolina update on the Zika virus with the State Emergency Management Commission at the quarterly meeting Friday.
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All of the cases are the result of travel to countries where Zika is more widespread, according to health officials.
