Zika Kills Three As Carnival Revellers Warned

It said men with a pregnant partner who live in or have traveled to an area of active Zika transmission and their partner should consistently and correctly use condoms during sex or abstain for the duration of the pregnancy. Because 80% of those infected by the virus show no symptoms, that could leave many pregnant women with no way of knowing if their pregnancy is affected in time to make an informed choice about their unborn child.

A Brazilian health official warned pregnant women to think twice before giving a kiss as global measures mounted Friday against the Zika virus suspected of a link to birth defects.

Efforts to control the spread of the virus focus on eliminating mosquito breeding sites and taking precautions against mosquito bites such as using insect repellent and mosquito nets.

Also, on Tuesday the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and Dallas Health Department confirmed that someone got infected by intercourse with another who had traveled in a Zika-infected country.

Colombian officials said Friday that three people had died of the paralyzing Guillain-Barre syndrome they attributed to cases of Zika. The Zika virus has also been found in Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, Lee and Santa Rosa counties.

“Because this phenomenon is so new, we are, quite literally, discovering more and more about it each and every day”, Frieden told reporters.

Santos said at a news conference broadcast on TV that state and local authorities are working to reduce the mosquito population to try to cut down on the spread of the virus.

These are the first cases in the state, one in Douglas county and one in Sarpy county.

Brazil has been hit hardest with almost 4,000 cases so far and the virus has spread to more than 30 countries, including Ireland.

But Jorge Lopez-Camelo and Ieda Maria Orioli, from the Latin American Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations (ECLAMC), suggested that the baseline may have been underestimated and that heightened awareness of the birth defect, because of the possible link with Zika, may have led to an increase in reported cases.

There haven’t been reports of infected women passing Zika to male sex partners, the CDC said in a statement. They added that they’re closely monitoring mosquito population.

A spokesman says the United Nations secretary-general supports the United Nations human rights chief’s call for an urgent review of laws restricting access to sexual and reproductive health services amid the Zika outbreak.