1st travel-related case of Zika virus confirmed in Georgia

USA health insurers are closely monitoring the Zika virus and educating members, but it’s too soon to project what the virus may cost payers.

Although the virus is predominantly found in the Caribbean and Latin America, in recent weeks it spread to the United States, and now Texas officials have discovered the virus spread through sexual contact in Dallas County. There are three confirmed cases in IL, but this is the first possible case in Chicago.

“Control measures need to focus on the major source of Zika, which is still overwhelmingly mosquitoes”, said Ben Neuman, a virologist at Britain’s University of Reading. “There are only two cases so far, the second one in the United States that we have seen [was] sexual transmission”, Ali said.

“Under the sexual transmission, since 80 percent will not have symptoms, that’s a concern”, Thompson said. “We laid this out in an article in 2011”.

The Asian tiger and the yellow fever mosquitoes – Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti, respectively – are about half the size of normal mosquitoes and have black-and-white stripes. Health officials think Zika might be connected to the rise in birth defects in the Americas, though it has not yet been proven.

The real concern is for women who are pregnant, as it has been linked to microcephaly – a condition in which a baby is born with an abnormally small head, which can lead to mental retardation.

Health officials have advised pregnant women to avoid travel to affected areas.

The Georgia case involves a person who was not pregnant and had traveled to Colombia from late December through early January. But in each, a traveler had gotten the disease overseas.

Once contracted, how long is the Zika virus potentially transmittable for?

The current Zika outbreak started in Brazil in the spring of 2015.

“The findings from Dallas seems to confirm our discovery, which is exciting to the scientist in me, but concerning for the general public and for how hard it may be to control this pandemic”.

As for sexual transmission, the CDC is expected to release formal recommendations. Doctors in Latin America have linked it to a serious birth defect.

For now, the CDC wants people in the U.S.to play it safe. His recommendations to patients getting ready to travel to such areas: “Just be smart”.

In Texas, a man who’d traveled to Brazil apparently infected his sexual partner with the virus on his return to the US, the CDC confirmed this week.