“The Hawaii State Department of Health has received laboratory confirmation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of a past Zika virus infection in a baby recently born with microcephaly in a hospital on Oahu”, the health department said in a statement posted on its website. Zika is spread by the Aedes genus of mosquitoes, some varieties of which also spread dengue virus, yellow fever virus and Chikungunya.
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Following the rapid outbreak of a malarial virus called Zika in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned pregnant women against traveling to those regions.
Women considering becoming pregnant were advised to consult doctors before traveling to countries with Zika cases, and all travelers were urged to avoid mosquito bites, as were residents of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands.
“That’s exactly what we saw when chikungunya spread”, he said, referring to another disease that is carried by the same mosquitoes and has spread through the Americas in the past couple of years. Since May, more than 1.5 million Brazilians have been infected. “That’s pretty good evidence that, at least in those children with microcephaly, there was Zika virus in their brains”. Petersen, the CDC’s director of vector-borne diseases, said the virus is “spreading fairly rapidly through the Americas”. The WHO recommends pregnant women follow the same mosquito precautions as others: Cover up skin, use repellent and insecticide-treated nets, and try to eliminate mosquito breeding grounds.
Public Health Minister Florence Duperval Guillaume announced on Friday that there have been five confirmed cases of the Zika virus in Haiti.
There is no vaccine or treatment for the Zika virus infection, which is spread by Aedes mosquitoes. Individuals can protect themselves only by taking steps to avoid mosquito bites. Although the disease is typically mild, causing a fever, rash and aching joints, Zika can have devastating consequences when infection occurs during pregnancy, especially during the first two trimesters, Petersen said.
“There’s no indication at this point that there’s any Zika virus circulating in Hawaii”, CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said.
There have been 26 travel-related cases of Zika virus in the United States since 2007, but no locally acquired cases so far, Petersen said. A direct causal link has not been proven yet, but scientists have found evidence of the virus in the wombs of women who gave birth to babies with microcephaly. Pregnant women who live in Brazil in areas of the country where there has been a high incidence of the Zika virus have begun advising women to “delay having a child”. However, the Hawaii health department issued a medical advisory to doctors throughout the state to make them aware of the possibility that women they treat who have lived in and/or traveled to other countries and territories might be also infected with the Zika virus. The country welcomed about 656,000 USA visitors in 2014, the latest year for which data is available. Symptoms usually clear up within a few days.
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CDC are now deciding what they should tell people about Zika, how wide an area to include in any warning and whether it should go beyond the standard cautions about mosquito-borne diseases.
