The possibility of infection via body fluids complicates efforts to combat the outbreak. “Women should be able to have an abortion if they want”.
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Ruppert said the mosquito that transmits the virus is not found here.
“Because this is so knew, we are learning more about Zika daily”, Frieden said during a teleconference Friday, noting that “we can’t make assumptions about how Zika spreads from one individual case”.
So, the agency is advising men returning from Zika virus affected areas to use condoms, or abstain from sex with their pregnant partner through duration of her pregnancy.
They said they used genetic testing to identify the virus in saliva and urine samples from two patients who had symptoms caused by Zika infection, and determined that the virus was active, meaning it had the potential to cause infection, scientists at the public Oswaldo Cruz Foundation said. While the symptoms of the disease for most people are only rash, fever and flu-time effects, children of women affected with the virus can be born with microcephaly, a serious birth defect that that results in an abnormally small head and brain.
Brazilian soldiers conduct an inspection for the Aedes aegypti mosquito on a street in Recife Brazil.
Cases of the syndrome, which causes weakness and sometimes paralysis, have increased in tandem with the outbreak of the Zika virus now sweeping Latin America. Some revellers even keep track of the number of complete strangers they kiss.
The flurry of recommendations began in Brazil, where a top health official warned pregnant women to be cautious with their kisses.
Transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of Zika virus. However, the World Health Organization on Thursday advised countries not to accept blood donations from people who have been in Zika-prevalent countries. The U.N. agency also said there was evidence of indirect local transmission in six other countries.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention is asking pregnant women to abstain from sex if their partner has recently visited an area where Zika is now active.
The CDC is now telling doctors to test the women for Zika between two and 12 weeks after they get back to the U.S., Frieden said.
One case of the Zika virus has been confirmed in Georgia, a traveler who had been in Colombia. Frieden said he had not yet seen that research and was cautious about the report.
And for babies thought to have microcephaly, a complex process of waiting, lab work and therapy is needed to determine whether the condition is in fact present and whether it may have coincided with a Zika infection.
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Two government sources said the decision would be made at a meeting next Wednesday between the health, science and technology ministries as well as President Dilma Rousseff’s chief of staff.
