The government’s leading public health officials urged Congress to boost funding for the Zika virus and announced new evidence linking the mosquito-borne illness to major birth defects at a hearing on Wednesday.
Advertisement
The Aedes albopictus mosquito, native to NYC, has been known to transmit Zika in other areas. As a result some areas within U.S. borders may be affected come summer time. The Centers for Disease Control have set up a dedicated website at cdc.gov/zika and the New York State Department of Health has established a Zika Information Line: 1-888-364-4723.
According to the White House, the CDC had reported 50 laboratory-confirmed cases among US travelers from December 2015 through February 5, 2016.
“It was just a matter of time before, through testing we discovered our first case of Zika in a Marylander who has traveled”, said Dr. Howard Haft, of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Zika is associated with relatively mild symptoms, except for pregnant women.
Last week the CDC issued its own detailed recommendations for preventing sexual transmission of the virus, including the suggestion that men who have traveled to Zika-affected regions consider abstaining from sex with their pregnant partner for the duration of the pregnancy.
The CDC is telling doctors to test the women for Zika infection between two weeks and 12 weeks after they return home.
Symptoms include fever, rash, joint pain or red eyes, in addition to muscle pain and headache, according to the CDC. Finally, the development of a vaccine and treatments must be a top priority. Tests are being conducted from Alabama resident specimens with a travel history to areas where Zika virus outbreaks are ongoing. People usually don’t become ill enough to go to the hospital, but in some cases it could lead to paralysis or death.
“It’s unprecedented, and it places the burden squarely on women”, said Lourdes Garcia-Navarro on NPR’s “All Things Considered” “Authorities here in Brazil but also Ecuador, Colombia and Jamaica, are encouraging women to delay getting pregnant”.
Scientists suspect that when Zika strikes a pregnant woman it can cause her foetus to develop microcephaly – a condition that causes the baby to be born with an abnormally small head.
An autopsy revealed that particles of the Zika virus and a significant amount of viral genomic RNA were present in the brain, but not other organs.
Advertisement
The timeline is similar to that suggested by researchers elsewhere, many of whom say clinical availability of any Zika vaccine is still at least three years away.
