Virus outbreak travel advisory

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday repeated its recommendation that pregnant women avoid travel to affected countries until more can be learned about whether it can affect unborn babies.

The travel advisory has been extended to include the following locations: Barbados, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin and Guyana; Cape Verde, off the coast of western Africa; and Samoa in the South Pacific.

What CDC doesn’t say directly is that there’s really nothing to be done for a pregnant woman who’s infected with Zika. Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, which are found throughout the US and are known for transmitting dengue fever and chikungunya, may also transmit the virus, the CDC said Friday.

“We do still know so little about this virus and the harm that it can cause”, says Albert Ko, an epidemiologist from Yale who has been working with the Brazilian Ministry of Health to investigate the Zika outbreak.

The virus is relatively mild in adults with symptoms such as fever, aches and conjunctivitis, which looks similar to pink eye.

Not all infected people develop symptoms.

Brazil has reported several hundred more cases of a birth defect called microcephaly, in which babies have underdeveloped heads and brains and often die before or at birth.

“Your cranium expands in order to accommodate the growth of your brain and these babies have neuro-developmental anomalies essentially”, said Dr. Ricks-Cord.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed over the past week a dozen cases of Zika virus in travelers returning to the United States.

If you are pregnant, don’t travel to Brazil. There’s no specific treatment; infected people aren’t contagious.

What’s alarming with Zika virus is its significant effects on newborn babies.

In El Salvador, where the health ministry is advising women to postpone pregnancy until 2018, official figures show 96 pregnant women are suspected of having contracted the Zika virus.

USA authorities have warned pregnant women against travelling to 22 countries where Zika cases have been registered.

In the meantime, the only way for people to protect themselves is to avoid mosquito bites by using repellent, wearing protective clothing and staying indoors. It is helping Brazil conduct a study this month to evaluate if any link exists between the condition and the Zika virus. Zika is transmitted primarily by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says global investigators are probing an apparent link between the Zika virus and a rise in microcephaly in Brazil, where thousands of babies have been born with unusually small heads in the past year or so.