Officials found that a urine test was 95 percent effective at spotting Zika infection, compared to 56 percent for a blood test. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been 472 travel-associated Zika virus cases reported in the United States, including 40 in California. And it recommends a different type of blood test, one that detects a person’s immune response to the virus as opposed to the virus itself, if more than two weeks have passed since the patient’s first symptoms.
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“It does raise that question”, says William Schaffner, MD, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University.
The virus is mainly mosquito-borne, although some cases have been sexually transmitted.
The CDC has set up a Zika pregnancy registry so people with the virus can be followed through pregnancy and delivery, according to Brown.
“Whether it’s more money for our mosquito boards, whether it’s to make sure we have the right testing kits”, argues Scott.
Months ahead of the Brazil Summer Olympics, the World Health Organization declared the Zika virus outbreak a global emergency. Dr. Frieden was referring to the now-confirmed link between the Zika virus and microcephaly, a birth defect notarized by small newborn head size.
Zika is hard to diagnose because of its symptoms, which are similar to so many other illnesses. “It is now effecting the American people, it’s an bad virus and we need to get at it and stop it before it’s too late”. It has a 3- to 12-day incubation period which produces mild flu-like symptoms such as a fever skin rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis.
A doctor examines a larva of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the carrier of Zika virus, in a laboratory of the Ministry of Health, in San Jose, Costa Rica, on January 29, 2016.
Federal health officials have posted travel notices about Zika-afflicted countries in Central and South America, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and the Pacific Islands. That’s especially important for pregnant women given the serious risk Zika infection poses to fetal brain development. That kind of transmission has not yet been seen in the US mainland, but that may change as temperatures rise and mosquito populations boom.
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Mujica said she believes she contracted Zika from a mosquito bite – and not sexual contact – while in Honduras, where Cruz lives in the city of Choloma.
