The CDC previously noted that pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to the virus.
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In a statement posted to its website, Brazil’s health ministry said that two-thirds of the material gathered during recent field work with an American team would be shipped to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“CDC has issued new interim guidance on preventing sexual transmission of Zika virus after confirming through laboratory testing… the first case of Zika virus infection in a non-traveler in the continental United States during this outbreak”, the CDC said.
In a report released Friday, the agency said current information about possible sexual transmission is based on reports of three cases.
They were also told to avoid sharing cutlery, glasses and plates with people who have symptoms of the virus, while men were warned to use condoms with pregnant partners if they have visited countries where the virus is present.
Earlier this week, U.S. health officials confirmed the first case of sexually transmitted Zika – a person who had traveled to Venezuela and infected a sexual partner in Texas upon return. It is now telling men who have been to areas with outbreaks of the Zika virus to consistently use condoms during sex with pregnant women.
To date, the mosquito-borne virus has spread to more than 20 countries in the Americas.
Zika virus is being transmitted primarily through the bites of Aedes species mosquitoes.
Experts greeted Friday’s announcement with caution, saying the sample size was small and noting little is known about how the virus spreads.
“We don’t know whether it can move from a woman to a man. We assume also that if a man can transmit it to a woman, that a man could also transmit it to another man”, Schaffner said.
President Juan Orlando Hernandez has allocated an initial tranche of $10 million in an attempt to halt the spread of the virus.
“Other cases (of deaths linked to Zika) are going to emerge”, said epidemiologist Martha Lucia Ospina, director of the INS.
Still, most global experts are cautious about whether Zika can trigger Guillain-Barre, a rare syndrome that causes paralysis, because other infections and conditions can lead to the illness. The patient later died from his gunshot wounds and not the Zika infection, health officials and Carvalho said.
As the Zika virus rapidly spreads to new countries, the World Health Organization provides answers to some of the most essential questions about the mosquito-born disease.
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Keaten reported from Geneva.
