New York City’s health department on Friday reported the first female-to-male transmission of the Zika virus, which is most typically spread by the bite of an infected mosquito.
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The Zika virus can lead to children being born with Microcephaly which causes a newborn to have a small head that gives rise to developmental issues.
Now the CDC recommends that pregnant women whose male sexual partner has traveled or lived in a place where Zika is spreading use a barrier method of contraception, such as a condom, or refrain from sex during the pregnancy.
Doctors will now need to re-examine health recommendations to ensure that women who return from regions where the Zika virus is being spread do not infect their male partners.
While she presented symptoms nearly immediately, her male partner developed fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis seven days after sexual intercourse.
On the third day, the woman saw her doctor and provided urine and blood samples, both of which tested positive for Zika.
The CDC is updating its recommendations for the prevention of the Zika virus following the announcement that the first woman has been found to transmit the virus to a male partner though sex.
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. He also said he’d had no other sexual partners in the crucial time period before his illness.
And there was one report of Zika detected in the vaginal fluid of a woman in the Caribbean island nation of Guadeloupe, a CDC official said. In fact, the virus thrives better in semen than it does in blood.
Some experts said the case isn’t surprising.
If the virus was passed along through vaginal fluid, there is very little information on how long it might persist there or how great the risk of transmission during intercourse is. To put that into comparison, there have been 1,305 travel-related cases of Zika in the mainland United States and no known cases where Zika has been transmitted via a mosquito bite.
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New York City health officials have said they’ve been monitoring populations of the insect and applying pesticides to keep mosquito-borne diseases like Zika at bay. The man was uncircumcised, which always raises the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted viral diseases, such as HIV and herpes, Brooks said.
