NYS Health Officials Advise MDs to Watch for Zika Virus

Because Zika often causes no symptoms, researchers say it’s not surprising that the first cases of illness weren’t reported in Brazil until the following May.

The agency also raised the alert level for all travelers to 14 affected countries and territories: Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

It’s a virus that can make people sick with rash, fever, joint pain, and pinkeye, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

15, 2016, US health officials are telling pregnant women to avoid travel to Latin America and Caribbean countries with outbreaks of a tropical illness linked to birth defects.

Zika’s ability to pass through the placenta and infect the fetus in the womb, causing brain damage, is reminiscent of rubella, a virus once thought to be benign that in the 1960s affected thousands of babies who were stillborn or born with brain damage.

The rare condition, marked by an abnormally small head, is associated with incomplete brain development. In theory, the Zika virus could be spread through blood transfusion, but as yet there are no documented cases, the CDC said. These mosquitoes also transmit dengue fever and chikungunya. “We are in contact with global laboratories, with our laboratories in Brazil, so we can develop, in record time, a vaccine against Zika, which will be much simpler to develop than dengue, which has four serotypes”. It applies to the entire countries “unless there is specific evidence the virus is not occurring somewhere”, Petersen said.

Consider Brazil. Health officials there estimate that some 1.5 million people have been infected with Zika in the previous year alone, making it ground zero for the largest outbreak in the Americas. “That is, we now have cases of the virus being transmitted by mosquito bites that happened in Ecuadoran territory”, she told a press conference.

And this past week, the CDC confirmed it had found evidence of the virus in the brains of two Brazilian infants with the condition who died shortly after birth. When they studied the amniotic fluid in pregnant women carrying babies with microcephaly, they found Zika. The virus has moved quickly from South America to the Caribbean and Central America.

There have been no cases of anyone being infected with the Zika virus while in Hawaii; although, six people have become infected in other countries and then traveled to the state since 2014. Until recently, Zika was limited to a narrow belt of equatorial Africa and Asia. For women who are trying to get pregnant CDC recommends consulting with a healthcare provider before traveling to these areas.

The department sent a Medical Advisory to physicians statewide Friday as a reminder that while Zika virus is not endemic in the US, it can be acquired in a number of countries and travel history should always be considered.

The Zika virus, which is a type of arbovirus, is spread from person to person through mosquito bites, and its symptoms tend to be mild, lasting from several days to a week, according to the CDC. Travelers to these areas should take special precautions against mosquito bites, including wearing long-sleeve shirts and trousers and using insect repellants. “If the virus spreads to the United States mainland it will most likely be identified first in Florida or the gulf states”.