Fears about Zika virus prompt travel alert for pregnant women

On Thursday, El Salvador urged women leaving in the Central American country to avoid becoming pregnant until 2018 in order to avoid their babies from developing birth defects due to the Zika mosquito borne virus that has rampaged across the Americas.

Research is under way into the effects of the Zika virus on pregnant women and newborn babies; information about the possible transmission of Zika from infected mothers to babies during pregnancy or childbirth is “very limited”, PAHO says.

The Zika virus is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is also known to carry the dengue, yellow fever and Chikungunya viruses. The symptoms typically begin 2 to 7 days after a person is bitten by an infected mosquito.

Microcephaly is a birth defect in which a baby is born with a smaller head and a smaller brain, which may not develop properly.

Babies with microcephaly are born with smaller than normal heads and their brains do not grow at a normal rate. Those regions have been added to the Level 2 travel alert that already includes Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Only one in five people become symptomatic with fever, joint pain, rash and red eyes.

With no commercially available Zika tests, only the CDC and some state health laboratories are equipped to detect the virus.

There is no prevention or treatment, which is why the best course of action is for travelers to danger areas is to prevent mosquito bites by using mosquito repellant and covering exposed skin. The Ministry of Health has recorded more than 3,700 cases of microcephaly in 2015 and so far this year.

State health officials said the three cases found in NY involved testing in the Wadsworth Laboratory in Albany. Mosquitoes that spread Zika virus bite mostly during the daytime.

Brazilian officials too have said they’re investigating a link between Guillain-Barre and Zika. AAA said they are monitoring the situation, and recommend people purchase travel insurance so they could change plans, if necessary. They’re trying to discover if that change has made the virus more likely to spread and whether it’s changed the way Zika affects people.

Another woman in for a checkup at the clinic, 22-year-old Sandra Barrios, also said she might avoid having more children.

The virus was first isolated in 1947 in the Zika forest in Uganda, the World Health Organization reports, and since then, it has remained mainly in Africa with sporadic outbreaks in Asia. 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.