The milestone comes on the day that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also reported the first documented instance of a female infecting a man through unprotected sexual intercourse. The next day, she began exhibiting symptoms of Zika (fever, fatigue, a rash, back pain) and soon tested positive for Zika. Results tested positive for Zika virus RNA in both samples.
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A week after the couple had sex, the man developed fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes.
Some people have expressed concern that Zika infection will have long-term implications on women’s reproductive health, potentially damaging future offspring.
The CDC has recommended that pregnant women avoid travel to areas with ongoing Zika transmission.
If a man has the virus in his semen and has sex with a woman who is pregnant or becomes pregnant, the baby could be born with devastating neurological birth defects. He also told authorities that he had condomless vaginal sex only one time with her female partner, identified as the previous patient, the day she returned to NYC. More than 1100 individuals have been diagnosed with Zika infection, including 320 women.
The CDC has confirmed 40 Zika cases in Pennsylvania since the winter, all in people who contracted the virus while visiting an outbreak-affected area overseas, health officials have said. Up until now, it was thought that the only likely route of sexual transmission was male-to-female or male-to-male. He had not had sex with anyone else or received any recent mosquito bites, suggesting the virus was transmitted via his partner.
Its report did not specify where the woman may have been infected.
Florida cases now total 311, including 43 involving pregnant women regardless of symptoms.
“Anytime you see male-to-female transmission, there’s always the risk of female-to-male transmission – we found that with HIV”, said Siegel, who was not part of the research. The state tallies pregnant women separately because of Zika’s association with serious birth defects and fetal death.
It’s unclear how much virus was in her vaginal fluids, but animal models have shown that the virus can be present in those secretions. Current guidance to prevent sexual transmission of Zika virus is based on the assumption that transmission occurs from a male partner to a receptive partner (5,6).
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Then, earlier this year, it was reported that a man who had traveled to a country where Zika is spreading infected his male partner through sex. On Tuesday, the Obama administration warned that failure by Congress to pass these funds prior to summer recess would further hinder the ability to respond to future threats from Zika or its spread.
