CDC Advises Abstinence, Safe Sex to Avoid Zika

They are being advised to abstain from sexual relations or use condoms if the male partner has been to a place where the Zika virus is transmitting.

The mosquito behind the Zika virus seems to operate like a heat-driven missile of disease. By Friday, state health officials had identified at least six cases statewide, all believed to be linked to worldwide travel to virus-afflicted regions.

“We can not say today that there is no possibility of transmission”, Gadelha added. The country’s National Health Institute director, Martha Lucia Ospina, said all three victims were confirmed to have been infected with Zika.

A top Brazilian health official warned pregnant women to think twice before giving a kiss as global measures mounted Friday against the Zika virus suspected of a link to birth defects.

The CDC recommends that pregnant women and men with a pregnant partner who have traveled to an area with Zika activity should “consistently and correctly use condoms during sex… or abstain from sexual activity for the duration of the pregnancy”.

The new interim guidelines from the US Centers from Disease Control are aimed at pregnant women and their partners, and at people of childbearing age who are concerned about Zika, a primarily mosquito-borne virus which has been linked to birth defects. If he is showing symptoms, Public Health England says, his partner should avoid pregnancy for six months after his recovery. As many as 4 million people might be exposed to the virus over the next year, and the disease can cause brain damage in babies if their mothers are exposed while pregnant.

However, Zika probably will not spread explosively across the USA, because the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry the virus only live in very warm areas. Scientists say the hotter it gets, the better the mosquito that carries Zika virus is at transmitting a variety of unsafe illnesses.

“We wish we knew more”.

Officials previously recommended pregnant women postpone trips to more than two dozen countries with Zika outbreaks, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean. The agency noted that Zika infection is usually mild, and about 80 percent of people who are infected with the virus have no symptoms at all.

The scientists also said that further research was required to determine whether the virus would be transmissible through saliva and if yes, then to what extent can the transmission be expected.

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday that a Douglas County woman and a Sarpy County woman, both in their 20s, contracted the virus after traveling to a Zika-affected country. In addition, the revised guidelines address testing for women who reside in areas where Zika is spreading.

We are quite literally discovering more about it each day.