Zika Virus Prompts Pregnancy Advisories And More CDC Travel Warnings

Researchers in Brazil said on Wednesday they had found new evidence linking the virus to increasing incidence of microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads.

But Marcos Espinal, head of the Pan American Health Organization’s communicable diseases department, said “travel restrictions will not stop the spread of Zika” and it is likely to reach throughout Latin America.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Friday revised travel warnings for pregnant women, advising them not to visit Barbados, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, Guyana, Cape Verde and Samoa because of Zika virus. El Salvador advised women to delay pregnancy for two years until the virus settles down.

In the Peruvian capital Lima, authorities disinfected a big cemetery for fear that Zika-bearing mosquitos were breeding in the flower pots.

The Salvadorean government decided to make the announcement because 5,397 cases of the Zika virus had been detected in El Salvador in 2015 and the first few days of this year. Since then the disease has spread to 18 other countries in south and central America and the Caribbean.

“We’d like to suggest to all the women of fertile age that they take steps to plan their pregnancies, and avoid getting pregnant between this year and next”, said Deputy Health Minister Eduardo Espinoza.

However, only six cases of microcephaly have been undisputedly linked to the Zika virus there. Pregnant women, and those trying to conceive, who must travel to one of these areas should talk to their doctor or other health care provider first and strictly follow the steps to avoid mosquito bites during the trip. The outbreak was documented on Yap island in Micronesia, whereby an estimated 73 percent of residents were infected with Zika virus.

The rise in reported cases is now inciting health officials to warn women in the region to avoid pregnancy until the virus, for which there is no vaccine, is more widely understood. “According to their ministry of public health, Zika has arrived in Haiti with five known cases in Port-Au-Prince, the capital”. And for most people the virus poses little long-term risk.

Typical symptoms are similar to the flu, including fever, joint pain, rash, conjunctivitis, headache and muscle pain.

The only way to prevent any of this is to not get bitten by infected mosquitos.

The CDC also said that cases of the neurological disorder Guillain-Barre syndrome have been reported in patients with probable Zika virus infection in Brazil and French Polynesia, although more study is needed to confirm the link.