Three pregnant women have tested positive for the Zika virus in Florida, where so far 32 cases have been registered, although none of those people contracted the disease in the state, the Florida Department of Health said Wednesday.
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In all events for which information is available regarding the new reports, travelers were men who had recently traveled to an area with local Zika virus transmission and reported symptom onset was within two weeks before the non-traveling female partner’s symptoms began. The first sexually transmitted Zika case was confirmed on February 2 when Dallas officials revealed that a patient was diagnosed after having sex with someone returned from an infected country with the virus.
Zika is not now being spread by mosquitoes in the continental United States, the cases of Zika reported have been in returning travelers.
Associated symptoms include rashes, red eyes, and joint pain, however the more grave fear is that the virus can cause microcephaly – an unusually small and deformed head – in the babies of pregnant women.
The CDC said several of these cases are among pregnant women, although it did not specify how many. It is important to prevent mosquito bites once you are infected, as the virus can easily spread.
The CDC on Tuesday said that the presence of the virus have been confirmed in two women who could not have been exposed to the virus other than through sexual contact through an infected male partner.
Officials didn’t say in which counties the women live.
Earlier in the day, Chan visited a hospital and clinical research center in Recife, a city at the epicenter of the Zika surge, which Brazilian researchers suspect is linked to an apparent increase in a rare birth defect. They also advise men concerned about the virus use condoms or abstain from sex, even if their partners are not pregnant.
Since past year, the virus has spread explosively across most of Latin America and the Caribbean.
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The World Health Organization chief said Wednesday that the evidence coming out of Brazil points to Zika as a possible cause of microcephaly. Though mosquito control officials say they have yet to detect the virus in mosquitoes in the United States, experts say it’s expected to arrive this spring as the weather warms and becomes more hospitable for the insects.
