Health Officials Warn Pregnant Woman Not to Travel to Latin America, Caribbean

Evidence of a rise of birth defects in Brazil has health experts concerned the virus is far more risky than people initially realized.

Zika is transmitted through bites from infected Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, which thrive in warmer temperatures. And Brazilian researchers have found evidence of the virus in amniotic fluid – which supports and surrounds a fetus.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an alert Friday advising pregnant women to avoid traveling to Brazil and several other countries in the Americas where Zika outbreaks have occurred.

The CDC’s Peterson said that the outbreak was a regional problem, with the risk for a pregnant woman traveling to Brazil not necessarily greater than traveling to another country on the list.

On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised pregnant women to postpone travel to the 14 affected countries.

Zika virus is an emerging mosquito-borne virus that was first identified in Uganda in 1947 in rhesus monkeys through a monitoring network of sylvatic yellow fever.

Earlier this week health officials in Harris County, Texas, confirmed a case of Zika virus in a person who recently returned from Latin America, where the virus is endemic. The virus has moved quickly from South America to the Caribbean and Central America.

As a result, they said, some among the 9.9 million travelers who leave from Brazilian airports every year could bring the disease with them and establish it at their destinations.

The Zika virus, which is transmitted by mosquitos, can not spread between humans.

Zika can be hard to diagnose, because its symptoms are similar to those of dengue fever, also known as “break bone fever” because of the severe joint pain it causes, and chikungunya, which first arrived in the Western Hemisphere in 2013 and whose African name means “bent over”, because of the stooped posture that the disease causes.

Right now there’s no vaccine for the Zika virus.

Brazil has been the hardest hit, documenting more than 3,500 cases of microcephaly between October 2015 and January 2016.

Second, the threat seems to be moving closer. In December 2015, Puerto Rico reported its first confirmed Zika virus case.

The CDC suggests using insect repellents, especially those that contain DEET, IR3535, picaridin, para-menthane-doil or oil of lemon eucalyptus as these products tend to provide longer lasting protection.

Women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant should talk to their doctors if they must travel and take steps to prevent mosquito bites. Outside of this Zika link, microcephaly is typically caused by genetic factors, exposure to environmental toxins or diseases during pregnancy including rubella or herpes. “A high percentage of the population could become infected in those areas”, he said, adding that there may be also be smaller epidemics along the Gulf Coast and Florida, where outbreaks of mosquito-borne Dengue have been reported.

There’s another travel alert for pregnant women already in place, discouraging travel to areas where malaria is spreading.