The woman had traveled to one of the countries where the Zika virus was widespread – that includes Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Advertisement
To protect women of child-bearing age in Zika-stricken countries, a vaccine will be important because the virus “is a flash infection”, disappearing from the mother’s bloodstream in days, said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health. “Those who do get sick tend to have a very mild illness which consists of some fever, rash, redness of the eyes, conjunctivitis, and muscle and joint aches”.
Zika virus is transmitted by mosquitoes to humans and by infected women to unborn babies. The WHO saw no need to issue travel advisories, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising pregnant women not to travel to areas with a Zika outbreak.
Still, there “is much we do not yet know about Zika and its relationship to the poor health outcomes that are being reported in Zika-affected areas”, a White House facts sheet reads.
On the point of sexual transmission Rattay said, “There have been two cases that are being looked at, where it is highly probably that transmission has taken place from a male individual who has been infected to a female partner”.
None of those details are apparently of any concern to those Republicans who would use the mosquito-borne virus as an excuse to keep “foreigners” from entering the country.
The Delaware Division of Public Health offered more information Wednesday on the state’s first Zika virus case – but not much.
However, to some students, the Zika virus is being made bigger than it really is.
Brazil has reported almost 4000 suspected cases of microcephaly. The CDC also advises people to avoid being exposed to semen of someone with the Zika virus, after a Texas case in which it was transmitted via sex. Recently, in a study involving more than 100,000 children over four years in Brazil, microcephaly has been observed in many infants in the absence of the Zika virus. Often women don’t know they’re pregnant until later in the first trimester, but infections occurring early in the pregnancy can have the worst effects, he said.
“We don’t expect a massive outbreak [in the United States, ] although we are prepared if there is one.”
Advertisement
Specialists welcomed the initiative, saying it showed how the global health community had learned crucial lessons from West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, which killed more than 11,300 people and saw scientists scrambling to conduct research to help in the development of potential treatments and vaccines.
