Doctors in Honduras said that the child insider her womb might have intracranial complications but it was only until the mother was admitted to the Hackensack University Medical Center that doctors confirmed the baby had Zika-linked microcephaly.
Advertisement
A baby with Zika-linked microcephaly in the United States was born on Tuesday, marking the first-ever case in the NY tri-state area but the third in the country.
Doctors there coordinated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test the woman for the Zika virus.
“Zika can be passed from moms to babies during pregnancy and there are strong links between the virus and a brain-related type of birth defect known as microcephaly”, Bryan said.
While she is the first baby born in the continental U.S. with Zika-linked microcephaly, she is not the first in the country.
World Health Organization officials on Friday cautioned that “many thousands” of infants infected with Zika virus could suffer neurological abnormalities and said nations dealing with an outbreak need to watch for problems beyond the widely reported cases of microcephaly. The disease can be transmitted sexually, although there is no recent record of Zika virus transmitted sexually in Colorado. She traveled to New Jersey, where she has family, to seek further treatment, he said. State health officials urge women who are pregnant or planning to get pregnant to avoid traveling to Zika-affected countries.
The baby’s ultrasound revealed microcephaly, which means the child will have a smaller head and underdeveloped brain.
The virus has swept several South and Central American countries, including Honduras, one of the poorest countries in Latin America, where in February officials declared a state of emergency after Zika cases soared to more than 3,600, according to local health officials.
The CDC puts the number of Zika infection cases at 591 nationwide, with 16 of them in New Jersey. Researchers at Rutgers University recently determined it could be July before any mosquitoes capable of transmitting Zika establish themselves here.
Though Zika is a short and mild illness, it greatly affects pregnant women because it could cause fetal deaths and birth defects among newborns. Zika is transmitted by Aedes species mosquito carriers.
“I think this has been rather hard for the family”, Al-Khan said.
Health officials recommend wearing long-sleeved shirts and trousers, as well as practicing mosquito control to prevent infection where Zika is being transmitted. Even pregnant women in the United States legally often have to wait five years before they get Medicaid coverage. The one case of Zika virus, that has occurred so far in Israel to a two year old child, was attributed to the child being exposed to it in Columbia. Al-Khan said that you don’t appreciate the scale of this problem until you see, referring to an affected infant, and share the pain of what the mother is going through.
Advertisement
A 31-year-old woman visiting the US from Honduras was infected during pregnancy, said a doctor from the Hackensack University Medical Center. “I can’t image that we’re near the end of the learning curve”.
