Zika virus should spark review of birth control access

The U.N. human rights agency called for some nations to loosen strict laws against abortion and US health authorities recommended men who have visited areas with the Zika virus use condoms if they have sex with pregnant women.

The CDC is warning pregnant women against travel to affected areas, and health officials in several of the affected countries are telling women there to avoid becoming pregnant.

Although the virus usually causes mild illness according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have also been reports of birth defects and other severe health consequences.

The Zika virus spreads mostly through mosquitoes, which bite and drink blood from someone who has the disease and then transmits it someone else upon biting them.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health of Indonesia issued a travel advisory for all Indonesians, who live or visit Latin American countries to protect themselves from mosquitoes by wearing long clothes, applying anti-mosquitoes ointment, and sleeping under a canopy bed or using anti-mosquitoes netting.

Feb 5, 2016- Spain has confirmed that a pregnant woman has been diagnosed with the Zika virus – the first such case in Europe.

“Is there a chance for the virus to get into semen or the actual canal of a woman to where it can be transmitted sexually into body fluids?” said Solla.

Mosquitoes remain the primary way Zika is spread, and preventing bites is the best way to avoid infection. At least 12 cases have been confirmed there.

The timing has raised health officials’ suspicions that the neurological condition is a complication of the mosquito-borne virus.

Frieden said that the data on saliva and on urine “is less clear”. However, the mosquito-transmitted virus has been implicated in a sharp increase in the number of babies with a rare birth defect known as microcephaly. One of the problems with Zika is that symptoms only appear in about 20 per cent of people who have it. Consequently, the CDC is advising that people take special precautions after visiting an area where Zika is now making the rounds. The victim may experience such symptoms as fever, skin rashes, muscle and joint pain, headaches, reddened eyes and fatigue. The exception is a case in Dallas in which it appears a person became infected after having sex with a person who fell ill after traveling to South America.