US health officials are reporting new cases of a mosquito-borne virus linked to birth defects.
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All of the Zika cases in the US involve foreign travel. Two of the Florida cases occurred in Miami-Dade County residents who travelled to Colombia in December; the third case is a resident from the Tampa, St. Petersburg area who travelled to Venezuela in December. Although birth defects have not yet been widespread in Colombia, pregnant women are among those who have been infected. On Tuesday, Illinois said two pregnant women tested positive for the virus after traveling to countries where Zika is found. Physicians are monitoring their health and pregnancies.
There is no vaccine or medication to prevent or cure Zika virus infection, or to prevent microcephaly, prompting the agency to advise women take extreme precaution when traveling, or anywhere they could get bit by mosquitoes. According to the CDC, the most common symptoms of Zika are fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis, and severe cases that require hospitalization are rare. But you’d have to be now cooking a baby (or trying to make one) in order for the virus to pose a threat to your spawn.
Q: What do you think about the CDC issuing a travel alert for regions where the virus is spreading?
The Zika virus is spread by the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti mosquito, the same species that spreads dengue fever.
The woman contracted the virus while traveling in Latin America.
The department of foreign affairs is warning of the risks for Australians travelling to places where there are outbreaks, with alerts current for Brazil, Paraguay, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia and the Cook Islands. The first US case was confirmed in Texas this month in a traveler who returned from El Salvador.
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Fewer than 150 cases of microcephaly were seen in the country in all of 2014. The situation is so grave in South America’s largest country that officials have asked Brazilian women to hold off getting pregnant, if possible, until the crisis is contained. The virus is transmitted by mosquitos and can spread from a pregnant mother to her fetus.
