Women infected with Zika can pass the virus to sex partners, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday, citing the example of a NY woman known to be the first such case.
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The case involved a “nonpregnant woman in her twenties who reported she had engaged in a single event of condomless vaginal intercourse with a male partner the day she returned to New York City from travel to an area with ongoing Zika virus transmission”, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.
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. Others were infected with the virus while traveling to Latin America, the Caribbean, and other areas. The next day she had a fever, fatigue, back pain, a rash, swelling, numbing and other symptoms. She developed Zika symptoms a few days later and was tested by her physician, who confirmed the infection.
Three new cases of the Zika virus among San Francisco residents have been diagnosed in the past two weeks, the city’s Department of Public Health announced Friday. It is now recommending that pregnant females whose partners have traveled to a place where the Zika virus is spreading should make sure condoms are used or abstain from sex for the duration of the pregnancy.
No female-to-female sexual transmission of Zika has been reported.
Until now, scientists believed it was only possible for men to spread Zika through sexual contact. All prior transmissions had occurred from males to their sexual partners. There have now been 1,305 travel-related cases of Zika reported in the U.S., and 14 known cases of sexually transmitted Zika in the U.S., per CNN. We urge everyone to take precautions to prevent mosquito bites and to prevent the spread of Zika virus via sex.
The CDC has reported 15 cases of sexual transmission of Zika in the United States, as well as 1,130 total Zika diagnoses- 320 of them among pregnant women.
Researchers do not yet know exactly how the virus spread in the NY case.
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Recent studies have already shown that Zika is present in the female genital tract, including in vaginal fluid, but this is the first recorded case of transmission. Each of the residents traveled in countries where Zika is circulating, health officials said. The recommendation now also includes women who have sex with women, even though there have been no documented woman-to-woman transmissions. The perceived threat was male-to-female (or male-to-male) transmission, because the virus can persist in semen longer than it stays in the blood. The test showed Zika in his urine.
