Health warning on Zika virus

IL public health officials said Tuesday two pregnant women have been diagnosed with the Zika virus.

The Zika virus is spread when a mosquito bites an infected person and then bites someone else.

A woman in Hawaii who had recently returned from Brazil with Zika also gave birth to a baby with brain damage, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed.

The virus can cause fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis, with symptoms usually lasting less than a week. No definitive causal link between the virus and microcephaly has been confirmed, but the CDC issued a travel alert last week urging pregnant women in the Americas to be particularly vigilant to avoid mosquito bites.

Pregnant women who traveled in areas where Zika is active but have no clinical symptoms should also be offered an ultrasound, and women whose fetus shows signs of microcephaly should also be offered amniocentesis. The Florida victims traveled to Colombia and Venezuela and the two pregnant women in IL visited Central America and the Caribbean. There is no vaccine or specific drug to treat this virus. None of the residents are pregnant women. It’s been determined women can pass the virus to their babies, causing birth defects.

To help countries prepare for and respond to Zika, WHO is working with ministries of health to improve laboratory capacity to detect the virus, providing recommendations for clinical care and follow-up of infected patients (in collaboration with national professional associations and experts), and encouraging monitoring and reporting on the virus’s spread and the emergence of complications.

The IDPH recommends anyone who does travel uses an insect repellent, wears long sleeves and trousers, and stays in places with air conditioning or window and door screens. Since October, Brazil has reported more than 3,500 cases of microcephaly in infants compared to less than 150 in all of 2014.

The Zika virus is similar to the dengue virus in its mosquito-borne nature. Preventing mosquito bites will protect people from Zika virus, as well as other diseases that are transmitted by mosquitoes such as dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever.

They are areas where people are getting the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

Wendy Ferrer, whose daughter was born two weeks ago, said she considers herself lucky because her poor neighborhood near Barranquilla has been one of the hardest hit by the virus.

The advisory states “there is no local public health risk associated with this travel-related case”.

A baby in Oahu, Hawaii was born with microcephaly, a condition marked by an abnormally small head linked to Zika virus infection, making it the first reported case in the country.