Public health officials reported almost 9,000 cases of serious Zika disease there at the height of the outbreak, and perhaps two-thirds of all French Polynesians may have been infected by the virus. For women living in or traveling to countries where Zika virus has taken hold, the most pressing question has been: If I get pregnant, and I get Zika, what are the chances that my baby will be born with microcephaly?
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Florida now can test more than 4,300 people for active Zika virus and 1,400 people for the antibody, which shows if they’ve ever been exposed to the virus.
Dr. Irma Asuncion, head of the DOH Epidemiology Bureau, defined suspected cases as patients with three major symptoms-fever, conjunctivitis and skin rash-plus any of the following that can not be explained by other medical conditions: headache, myalgia or muscle pain, malaise, joint pain, retro-orbital pain or pain that occurs behind the orbit of the eye. This is because the mosquitoes that spread the Zika virus are rare at higher elevations because of the lack of humidity and other conditions.
Meanwhile, many states around the country are reporting positive test results for Zika in residents who have traveled to countries experiencing Zika outbreaks. Dr. Kathleen Antony, a maternal fetal medicine physician at UW Health, says the good news is that past Zika infections don’t seem to impact future pregnancies, but there’s a catch for women and men.
The Ohio Department of Health laboratory has begun Zika virus surveillance testing to identify suspected Zika virus infection in individuals within seven days of symptom onset. The virus has also been linked to severe birth defects, one of them in particular called microcephaly. Zika is of particular concern for pregnant women.
As of March 9, no locally acquired cases have been reported in the U.S. All 193 confirmed cases across the country have been travel-related.
There is no vaccine to prevent infection or medication to treat Zika virus.
Therefore, the link between microcephaly and the Zika virus remains an important public health issue, they said.
The researchers were then able to estimate the risk of microcephaly as 95 in 10,000, or around 1 per cent, of pregnant women infected with Zika in the first trimester. “One of the ways of doing that is to stay indoors at dark … wear DEET, wear long-sleeve clothing and protect yourself from mosquito bites”.
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Sparks advises anyone traveling to those countries to take measures to avoid mosquito bites. “You will want touse EPA-registered insect repellents and wear long-sleeved shirts and long trousers where and when mosquitoes are most active”. It is much less prone to cause birth defects than other known viruses, such as rubella or herpes.
