Officials also announced 12 more travel-linked cases today, as well as 3 Zika infections in pregnant women. The other two cases involved people who live outside of that area.
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The department now has seven active investigations underway, six of them outside the defined transmission area. It can also pass from mother to child, through sex and through blood transfusions. The patient is said to have contracted the infection while visiting Miami, Florida, where active Zika transmission has been confirmed. The infected mosquito can then spread the virus to others.
Infectious disease expert Peter Hotez notes that travelers infected with Zika have been returning to Texas for months.
Although the Zika virus is not especially unsafe in most cases, it has been found to cause microencephaly in utero: “Some babies with microcephaly have been reported among mothers who were infected with Zika virus while pregnant”. Doctors now know that the virus can cause microcephaly, a birth defect in which a baby’s head and brain are smaller and under-developed.
In adults, the virus is linked to a form of temporary paralysis called Guillain-Barré syndrome.
There is no vaccine to prevent Zika and no treatment for microcephaly.
WIKIMEDIA, US DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURENearly 2,000 Americans traveling overseas have contracted Zika to date, and now, an American traveler has caught the virus within the continental U.S. An El Paso County, Texas resident contracted the virus during a visit to Miami, where 30 people so far have been infected through local spread.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging pregnant women and their partners to stay away from Wynwood – the first time the CDC has ever warned against travel to an American neighborhood for fear of an infectious disease.
Nationally, health officials reported, as of Monday, that 30 people in Miami tested positive for the virus in a small, local cluster and one person in Texas may have acquired the virus while visiting Florida.
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In the United States, thousands of Zika virus cases have already been documented, including the local mosquito transmission in Miami and the Zika-related microcephalic infants found in NY to California, Time reported. “Public health environmentalists have been helping communities reduce mosquito breeding grounds around their homes and communities”. “This is another significant development, but not an unexpected one”.
