Microcephaly is a birth defect in which the baby is born with an abnormally small head.
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The nine confirmed USA cases of Zika virus infection were reported among pregnant women who had traveled to one or more of the following nine areas: American Samoa, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Samoa.
Late on Friday, the Federal Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for a new CDC laboratory test for the Zika virus that detects antibodies the body makes to fight infection.
The CDC also reported 40 locally acquired cases of the virus in US territories. The WHO, whose director visited Brazil this week, has said the virus should not affect worldwide travel nor prevent a successful Olympics in Brazil. For people who get sick, the illness is usually mild. Of those nine, two miscarried and two voluntarily terminated their pregnancies.
The CDC said it was investigating 10 other reports of the Zika virus among pregnant women. There is no conclusive proof so far that Zika and microcephaly are linked, but significant evidence to support this view exists.
With the Zika virus continuing to spread across the Americas after starting in Brazil, the Center for Disease Control recommended today that pregnant women avoid traveling to the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. Officials did not offer details surrounding the second abortion, other than to say it involved another woman who had become infected with Zika during the first trimester of her pregnancy.
The CDC said all are US residents, but it declined to answer a question on their citizenship.
Those destinations are among the 30 places now on the CDC’s travel alert.
The fetus from one of the terminations, which occurred around 20 weeks, was missing portions of it’s brain, and the remaining sections had severe abnormalities.
The CDC has advised couples in which men have been exposed to Zika to use condoms or abstain from sex during pregnancy.
“There is no immediate threat from Zika if people have not traveled to known affected areas”, said Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer. Other travelers are being warned to protect against mosquito bites.
The CDC said the Zika outbreak in Brazil is “dynamic” and that it will continue to monitor the situation and will adjust these recommendations as needed.
Research also is underway into a possible link between Zika and a paralyzing condition in adults called Guillain-Barre.
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A health official in the Argentine province of Cordoba has reported that a woman has contracted the Zika virus without having left the country, bringing to nine the total number of cases reported nationwide.
