More research is needed to determine the risk of a woman transmitting Zika virus to her sexual partners, according to the CDC, which urged medical professionals to report any patients who have Zika-like symptoms but no recent history of travel to an area with ongoing transmission of the virus.
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Given that Zika has already been confirmed to be sexually transmittable (although sexual transmission of the virus is rare), the news is not that surprising.
Scientists do not now know how Zika is fully transmitted or the length of time that a person with this virus will remain infectious.
About 600 pregnant women have tested positive for the Zika virus in the USA, with about half of those women living in Puerto Rico or other territories. The CDC also stated that pregnant women who have a female partner should take the same precautions.
Last month, on the day the NY woman returned from a trip to a Zika-infected country, she had vaginal sex with her partner, without a condom, health officials were told. Virus in either the vaginal fluids or menstrual blood could have infected the man during sex, the report said.
“Although no cases of woman-to-woman Zika transmission have been reported, these recommendations now also apply to female sex partners of pregnant women”, the USA agency added. The next day, she came down with Zika-like symptoms, including fever, rash, fatigue and muscle pain, along with numbness and tingling in her fingers and toes. The couple is now included in the 309 cases of Zika reported in New York City, all associated with travel.
Zika is primarily transmitted by the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, which thrives in warm, tropical climates. Others were infected with the virus while traveling to Latin America, the Caribbean, and other areas. But two babies have been born in the United States with the birth defect after their mothers contracted the virus while traveling during pregnancy in countries where Zika is active.
After being interviewed by the New York City health department, the man declared that he had not been outside the United States for over a year.
The CDC said it is updating its guidelines because the current advice to prevent sexual transmission of Zika “is based on the assumption that transmission occurs from a male partner to a receptive partner”.
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At the moment, there’s not enough evidence to show that sexual transmission goes “beyond a pair of partners”, Brooks said. Both people have been diagnosed with Zika. They had sex just before her period started, so there may have been a small amount of early bleeding.
