Pregnant women told to avoid countries with Zika outbreaks

It’s not clear what the officials will tell people just yet, because so little is known about the virus, which is spread by mosquitoes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued interim travel guidance on Friday for pregnant women and women of childbearing age who are planning to become pregnant, warning against travel to Brazil and 13 other countries in the Americas where the Zika virus has been linked to brain deformities in newborns.

Zika virus is spread to people through mosquito bites. But evidence is growing that it may cause a catastrophic birth defect called microcephaly.

State health officials today said they have asked Connecticut health care providers to report suspected cases of Zika virus infection to the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) and to the patient’s local health department.

Petersen said the virus is becoming a “regional problem”, and a pregnant woman traveling to Brazil is not necessarily at greater risk than if they were to travel to another country on this list.

It urged pregnant women in their first trimester to be especially vigilant about trying to avoid mosquito bites.

Countries that have past or current evidence of Zika virus transmission.

To date, there have been no cases of Zika virus acquired in Hawaii, state health officials said.

The Aedes Aegypti mosquito that transports the virus is found throughout the region. Symptoms usually clear up within a few days.

On Thursday, PAHO’s Communicable Disease and Health Analysis director Marcos Espinal who made the announcement also warned that there are many people who will contract zika without knowing it.

CDC’s Dr. Marty Cetron said the federal government wanted to give a heads-up to the countries that might be affected by any travel advisory.

A link between Zika infection in pregnancy and microcephaly in infants hasn’t been definitely established.

At least one woman in Texas may have already returned with the virus.

Besides South America and Puerto Rico, outbreaks of Zika virus have been reported in the past in Africa and Southeast Asia. More than 3,500 cases have been reported in Brazil since October.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might impose new travel guidelines for women heading to places where a certain virus is present.

In adults, it’s usually nothing more serious than a short-lived headache, joint pain and fever, but in unborn children, researchers believe the Zika virus can lead to microcephaly, which in many children, is fatal. A previously obscure illness confined to a narrow equatorial belt of countries, it is transmitted by the same mosquito that spreads dengue fever.

There has been a 20-fold increase in the number of babies born with this condition, known as microcephaly, since Zika first appeared in Brazil last May, said Dr. Kamran Khan, an infectious disease specialist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, whose team is studying the pathogen’s potential transmission patterns. Three out of four infected people have no symptoms at all, according to the Pan American Health Organization.