Croix woman confirmed as local Zika transmission

Dr Hilary Kirkbride, travel and migrant health expert at PHE, said: “The symptoms of Zika are similar to other mosquito-borne infections such as dengue, chikungunya and malaria so laboratory testing is essential for the correct diagnosis”.

The Center for Disease Control issued a travel advisory for pregnant American women traveling to those countries, posting advice on how to avoid mosquito bites.

Women in El Salvador should wait until 2018 before getting pregnant, the deputy health minister Eduardo Espinoza said, while Jamaica has asked women to avoid pregnancy for 6 to 12 months.

The hardest hit country, however, is Brazil where more than 1 million people have contracted the virus.

An adult who contracts Zika may experience a slight fever and a rash, as well as and pain in the joints and behind the eyes.

“This is a very new situation – it’s only a few months since we discovered the link between Zika and microcephaly – and there are still big gaps in knowledge”, she said.

CDC has already developed guidelines for American health providers regarding appropriate care for pregnant women in the face of Zika virus outbreak. And, because of the suspected links between the virus and severe birth defects, the CDC is urging pregnant women to take precautions.

In the Brazil cases, most of the mothers apparently were infected during the first trimester, but there is some evidence the birth defect can occur later in pregnancy, CDC officials have said. Zika outbreaks have also been reported in Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Suriname and Venezuela, among other countries.

The CDC recommends that pregnant women should consider postponing travel to the areas where Zika virus transmission is ongoing, but it has also published guidelines for pregnant women who do travel to those areas. It is uncommon for people infected with Zika to need hospital treatment. Women who are pregnant or who many be considering becoming pregnant may be wondering what their sphere of worry should be – namely, if their co-worker gets back from a Caribbean vacation, should they be anxious?

Meanwhile the Hospital da Restauracao in Recife treated about six times the normal number of Guillain-Barre cases, neurologist Maria Lucia Ferreira said. “And that rise is closely associated to the rise in cases of Zika virus”.

The Department of Health in the USVI confirmed its first case today (January 22) during a press briefing at the Charles Harwood Memorial Hospital, according to the VI Consortium news entity based In the USVI.