U.S. moms-to-be seek reassurance about Zika after trips overseas

Though it has not been scientifically proven, it seems likely that pregnant women who sustain this virus may give birth to babies with a too-small skull and not fully developed brain.

United States health authorities Friday expanded a travel warning for pregnant women to avoid 22 places in Latin America and the Caribbean due to the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects.

More than 5,000 cases of Zika virus were detected in El Salvador in 2015 and the first few days of this year.

The CDC conducted tests on human tissue from babies in Brazil confirming a the link between Zika virus and microcephaly.

The agency issued an advisory last week against travel to Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

“Mosquitoes bite not just at night but also during the day”.

The virus is already affecting a lot of women mostly in South America and it is alarming to have it spread in Jamaica when the country didn’t even have a single record of the disease all these years.

She recommended that pregnant women in affected areas should put screens over doors and windows and use insect repellents.

In Paris, Emilie Goldman, 33, had been planning a holiday to Bahia in northeastern Brazil, but has canceled it at the last minute because she is pregnant with her first child. Now there is no vaccine to prevent the virus and it may take years to develop one, according to Dr.Edward McCabe, senior vice president and chief medical officer of the March of Dimes. Brazil and Colombia lead the countries with the most reported infections, but it is spreading rapidly in neighboring countries. Zika causes a mild illness with fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis, with symptoms usually lasting under a week.

“Pregnant women in any trimester should consider postponing travel to the areas where Zika virus transmission is ongoing”, said the CDC.

Similar warnings have come out of Brazil, which has experienced the largest Zika outbreak on record, with more than a million people infected.

Since 2014, the state of Hawaii has documented six people as having caught the virus in other countries, but there is no sign the disease spread to other people in the islands.

A researcher at the University of Sao Palo holds a container with female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.