“There is virtually no risk to Illinois residents since you can not contract Zika virus from another person, but only through the bite of an infected mosquito”, Illinois Department of Public Health director Nirav D. Shah, M.D., J.D., said in a news release.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a travel alert to countries where Zika virus is being transmitted on an ongoing basis.
“We are not able to predict how much Zika virus will spread in the United States”, said Dr. Petersen.
Zika causes only a mild illness in most people.
They are Brazil, Barbados, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guyana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Surinam and Venezuela.
“There’s a birth defect we’re seeing in Brazil that may possibly be related back to the Zika Virus”, said Steve Huard, spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health in Hillsborough County.
The Aedes Aegypti mosquito is common in warm climates, including Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, Central America, the Caribbean and the Southeast US.
Speaking Wednesday at a news conference in the capital, Brasilia, the ministry’s emergency response official, Wanderson Oliveira, said that the reported cases are being investigated to determine whether they are really cases of microcephaly. The project will be driven towards Piracicaba in Brazl, which is now the most affected by the Zika virus.
Brazil is not the only country in the region hit by a Zika outbreak. More than 3,500 cases of microcephaly have been reported in the South American country, and 46 babies have died. There is a strong suspicion that infection during the first trimester of pregnancy can lead to microcephaly in babies, which can lead to abnormally small skulls and to severe brain damage.
Texas and Hawaii also have confirmed cases, including a baby born with a birth defect. Zika virus, a little-understood, mosquito-borne disease that may be causing rare but devastating birth defects, is spreading like wildfire throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
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Women who are trying to get pregnant – or thinking of getting pregnant – were also advised to talk to their doctors before traveling to those areas. The agency warned all travelers to these areas to take precautions to avoid mosquito bites. “You might want to delay your travel until later when you’re not pregnant”, Dr. Johns said.
