Hawaii Baby Contracts The First Case Of Zika Virus In The US

Brazil has reported an estimated 1 million+ Zika virus infections to date and are investigating in excess of 3,500 microcephaly cases possibly linked to the mosquito borne virus and now the health ministry wants to get to work on a vaccine, and quickly.

“The Hawaii State Department of Health has received laboratory confirmation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of a past Zika virus infection in a baby recently born with microcephaly in a hospital on Oahu”, the health department said in a statement posted on its website.

Lab results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the presence of the virus in the newborn.

In Brazil, Zika virus is being blamed for a 20-fold increase of babies born with microcephaly, or a small, underdeveloped brain. That allowed its birth defect effects to escape detection until its recent spread around the equator, where it infected a large population in Brazil that included many fertile women without any childhood immunity to the disease. However, in late December, it was reported that Puerto Rico had seen a case of locally-acquired Zika infection.

But women planning to have children soon should consider the risks when traveling to affected areas.

The locations named were: Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The virus has been ravaging the South American country of Brazil and 13 other countries and Caribbean territories, but this appears to be the first confirmed case in the USA, according to Reuters.

There’s no known vaccine or treatment for Zika, though people who have been infected may have immunity. Instead, use EPA-registered insect repellents containing DEET, picaridin, oil of lemon eucalyptus (OLE), or IR3535. If any person is found to have Zika, they should be kept away from mosquitoes as the virus can be transmitted to the mosquito which then can infect another person.

The Zika virus is transmitted by Aedes species mosquitoes, which also spread dengue and chikungunya viruses.

On Friday, the CDC came out with an alert asking pregnant women — at any stage of pregnancy — to postpone travel to 14 destinations in Latin America and the Caribbean. Those who feel ill show symptoms of fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis, commonly called pink eye.

Ecuador said on Friday it has detected two new cases of the Zika virus in the country.

That’s because Zika, like West Nile virus, is carried by mosquitoes.

“I think the warning was appropriate and it’s balanced, given what we now know”, infectious disease expert Daniel Lucey of Georgetown University told BuzzFeed News.

“We are saddened by the events that have affected this mother and her newborn”, DOH State Epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park said in the release. In October, doctors in Pernambuco state, Brazil, noticed a surge in cases of microcephaly.

Issuing the alert before a definitive causal link between the virus and birth defects seems to indicate how anxious health agencies are of Zika’s spread through the Americas.