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Sex Partner With No Zika Symptoms Transmits Virus: CDC

The majority of people infected with Zika virus will not experience symptoms.

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The biggest threat is Zika poses is to pregnant women. Symptoms can include fever, joint pain, rash and red, irritated eyes.

The government told all US blood banks Friday to start screening for Zika, a major expansion meant to protect the nation’s blood supply from the mosquito-borne virus.

Expanding the guidance is expected to further reduce the risk of transmitting Zika through the USA blood supply, the FDA said.

“The Zika virus appears to have a niche within the vagina”, study senior author Akiko Iwasaki, an immunobiologist at Yale University, said in a journal news release.

“Taking precautions when traveling to areas with Zika virus, or engaging in sexual contact with someone at risk for Zika infection, are the best ways to avoid contracting the virus”, Dean said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 2,500 cases of Zika have been reported in USA states and D.C., and more than 9,000 have been reported in US territories.

Blood testing began last month in parts of Florida after the first cases of homegrown Zika occurred in Miami. Previously, the FDA had limited the requirement to Puerto Rico and two Florida counties.

Zika came to the forefront of public awareness a year ago when an outbreak in Brazil led to an ongoing epidemic in South America and Central America.

The FDA also recommends that anyone who has traveled recently to an area where the Zika virus is active refrain from donating blood.

Things are much worse in the USA territory of Puerto Rico, where federal health officials have declared a public health emergency because Zika is spreading so rapidly among residents there. “We’re investigating this rigorously”, Iwasaki said.

Both tests are considered “investigational”, meaning they’ve been scrutinized by the FDA but have not yet passed all of its usual requirements. Currently, it’s circulating in South and Latin American countries and the Caribbean.

WTOC reached out to Georgia Southern, as well as the district and state health offices for more information on this case and any Zika developments in our region.

While the virus is primarily transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, it can also pass from one person to another during sex.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented birth defects in infants whose mothers have been infected.

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“You treat the symptoms, not necessarily the Zika”, explained Butler.

Aedes aegypti mosquito is kept in a glass tube at the Fiocruz institute which has been screening for mosquitos naturally infected with the Zika virus in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. For every 100 pregnancies involving wom