In the past year, there have been a dozen confirmed cases among US travelers, including two pregnant women in IL and one in Hawaii, whose baby was born with the birth defect. Travel warnings have been issued by some nations as the region plays host to the 2016 summer Olympics in June.
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In Colombia, Deputy Health Minister Fernando Ruiz told The Associated Press the country has recorded 13,531 suspected cases of Zika and said the number could rise to half a million this year.
The Zika virus is spread to people through the bite of an infected mosquito, the same mosquito that transmits dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Brazil’s health ministry has said the number of suspected cases of microcephaly in newborns increased by about 360 in the 10 days to January 16 to 3,893.
Thousands of babies in Brazil were born a year ago with microcephaly, a brain disorder that experts associate with Zika exposure. “In response, health authorities in several countries, including Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, and Jamaica, have asked women to voluntarily consider delaying their pregnancies”.
“If travel is unavoidable, or they live in areas where Zika is reported, they should take scrupulous insect bite avoidance measures both during daytime and nighttime hours”.
Not all infected people develop symptoms.
The intrauterine transmission of the virus from mother to unborn fetus has been confirmed with laboratory tests.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus is increasing its spread in the Caribbean and Latin America, with the Centers for Disease Control on Friday adding eight more countries to its travel-advisory list – that makes 22 countries total where pregnant women are being advised to reconsider travel.
Recently, the virus has been reported in the Americas, with the first Brazilian case reported in May 2015. No medicine or vaccine exists against the virus, which causes symptoms like rash, fever, pink eye and joint pain, and so the only cure is rest.
The alert issued last week included Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Suriname and Venezuela.
There is now no known cure for the Zika virus and therefore the only way to prevent the unsafe complications is to avoid contracting it in the first place.
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According to ACOG’s DeFrancesco, “there is much that we do not yet know about the Zika virus and its effects during pregnancy, for example whether pregnant women are of greater risk of infection than non-pregnant individuals”.
