CDC have reported only 14 cases of sexual transmission of the virus, but they are highly warning people, especially pregnant women for the unsafe repercussions the virus could have on the unborn children, to use “barrier methods” while maintaining sexual encounters with a partner who could be exposed to the virus by traveling.
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These infections have been tied to thousands of cases in Latin America of a devastating birth defect known as microcephaly, in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and neurological issues.
“She had returned to NY city from travel to an area with ongoing Zika virus transmission”. The agency urged heightened caution for pregnant women with female sex partners who have traveled to or lived in a place where Zika is spreading. Upon returning from the trip, she had condomless sex with a male partner, and the next day, she developed fever, fatigue, rash and other signs of Zika.
Her male partner, who had not traveled to a Zika-hit region, developed symptoms of the disease a week later.
NY and CDC health officials reported the case in the CDC’s weekly report on death and disease.
Sexually transmitted diseases that spread from men to women also spread from women to men, said Dr. John M. Douglas, Jr., a former CDC expert on sexually transmitted diseases who now oversees a local health department in Colorado. His urine test was positive for Zika, though not the blood test. The CDC confirmed the results.
Brooks noted that the male partner involved in the NY case was not circumcised. She also got her period that day.
The woman, also in her 20s, had reported a headache and abdominal cramping while in the airport waiting to return to NY.
It is unclear whether the couple was pregnant.
“Anytime you see male-to-female transmission, there’s always the risk of female-to-male transmission – we found that with HIV”, said Siegel, who was not part of the research. The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting for several days to a week after being bitten by an infected mosquito. The Aedes aegypti is a vector for transmitting the Zika virus. The samples tested positive for Zika, but did not contain antibodies, indicating the woman had only recently contracted the virus.
Zika virus can be spread by a man to his sex partners. Health department officials then confirmed her infection. The doctor tested him even though he hadn’t traveled from a Zika outbreak area and no cases of female-to-male transmission had been reported.
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“The man reported that he noticed no blood on his uncircumcised penis immediately after intercourse that could have been associated either with vaginal bleeding or with any open lesions on his genitals”, the report read.
