Puerto Rico braces for wave of mosquito-borne Zika virus

The infected woman, however, is not pregnant and recovering well while at low risk of any complications, said the French minister of social affairs, health and women’s rights, Marisol Touraine, on Saturday.

“This case report provides evidence that in addition to microcephaly, there may be a link between Zika virus infection and hydrops fetalis and fetal demise”, the authors of the case study said in the journal Plos Neglected Tropical Disease.

The latest count represents an increase of 5,695 new cases of the mosquito-borne virus in the last week, including 1,300 in pregnant women.

“We know Zika and microcephaly are associated, although we do not yet have definitive proof that Zika infection alone is the cause of microcephaly”. The birth defect is characterized by a malformed or smaller head and brain and can result in significant developmental delays.

However, NIAID deputy director Dr. Barney Graham explained that it would take decades to come up with a vaccine for a virus like Zika. Like many athletes headed to Brazil this summer, he is refusing to let Zika derail his Olympic dreams.

CDC gave some details of some of the cases, including a pregnant woman in her 30s who traveled to a Zika-affected area early in her pregnancy. All the women reported common symptoms of Zika virus infection, including fever, rash and or red eyes and all were confirmed in lab tests to have Zika virus infections. Brazil is investigating more than 4,100 additional suspected cases of microcephaly.

Zika virus infection has been confirmed in two non-traveling women whose only known risk factor was sexual contact with a male partner who had recently traveled to an area with ongoing transmission, the CDC said Friday.

For any pregnant women who still intend to travel to Brazil this summer, the CDC stated that advice should be sought from their physicians before going ahead with their trips.

As soon as the Zika virus hit the news, abortion advocates rushed in to exploit the crisis.

“With Dengue and Chikungunya circulating in the region, diagnosing Zika is a great challenge”, Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine chief Maria Guadalupe Guzman said on Friday. Four out of five do not realize they have been infected, according to the CDC. The virus remains in the blood of an infected person for only about a week.

The CDC said it has deployed 25 staff to help with the investigation.