Zika virus confirmed in Victorian pregnant woman

A second pregnant woman has been diagnosed with the mosquito-borne Zika virus in Australia, officials said yesterday, adding that the disease was acquired overseas and there was no public health risk.

The man from the southern city of Ganzhou had been treated in Venezuela on January 28 before returning home on February 5 via Hong Kong and the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said in a statement.

Victoria’s acting Chief Health Officer Roscoe Taylor said the virus required ongoing monitoring during pregnancy.

The virus is most commonly transmitted when an Aedes aegypti mosquito bites a person with an active infection and then spreads the virus by biting others.

Even though symptoms are most often mild, Zika is commanding attention because of an alarming connection between the virus and microcephaly, a neurological disorder that results in babies being born with abnormally small heads. “It was just a matter of time before, through testing we discovered our first case of Zika in a Marylander who has traveled”, said Dr. Howard Haft, of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The Health Department confirmed both residents had recently traveled out of the country.

“We simply do not have the mosquito vectors known to transmit from one person to another”, he said.

The majority of people infected with Zika virus have no symptoms.

The Zika virus has caused birth defects and miscarriages in Latin America and the Caribbean, officials said.

“The illness may include a fever, a rash which is sometimes itchy, and joint pains”. The CDC did not say where the women lived or where specifically they had traveled.

“I think this was simply an inevitably”.

It said there was no trace of Zika in any other organs, suggesting the virus had a tendency to infect and attack nerve cells. The diagnosis was made following a blood test.