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BREAKING: Asymptomatic Case of Zika infects others |
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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Posted: August 27 2016 at 5:00am |
This could be the worst news to date regarding Zika. An asymptomatic case has been sexually transmitted person to person. In other words, someone with no symptoms has passed Zika to another person. This opens the door for Zika to spread silently across the U.S. and potentially globally. Starting to rethink that Zika may be the next pandemic. Pretty sure Zika will now hit all states as time goes on.
First known case of sexual Zika transmission without symptoms(CNN)A man who had no idea he had Zika has given the virus to his female partner during sex, the Centers for Disease Control announced today. It's the first documented case of a person with no symptoms sexually transmitting the virus to a partner who had not traveled to an area of active Zika circulation. The
announcement came the same day the Food and Drug Administration revised
its guidance to recommend that all blood donations in the United States
and its territories be tested for the Zika virus. The
asymptomatic Zika transmission "illustrates the need for careful
precautions when visiting an area where Zika is circulating," said Dr.
John Brooks, a medical epidemiologist with the CDC. "Be sure to wear
insect repellent and appropriate clothing, and use CDC guidance on safe
sex when you return. This is especially critical for women who are
pregnant or trying to conceive and their partners. "Pregnant
couples need to defer unprotected sexual contact for the entire
pregnancy, even if the exposed partner never develops symptoms of Zika. A
few months of precautions can prevent devastating lifelong defects for
the developing fetus." Exposure to
the Zika virus during the first trimester, including before a woman even
realizes she is pregnant, has been linked to a devastating birth defect
called microcephaly, in which the infant is born with a small head and
underdeveloped brain. Infants with that disorder face overwhelming
obstacles such as seizures, eye and hearing problems, failure to thrive
and even death. Infants exposed later in pregnancy may escape
microcephaly but can continue to have abnormal brain development and
learning disabilities. The
historic case came to the attention of the Maryland Department of
Health in June. A woman reported typical signs of a Zika infection 16
days after she had unprotected sex with her male partner, who had
recently returned from the Dominican Republic, an area of active Zika
transmission. The woman had not traveled, had no other sex partners for
14 days before onset of her symptoms and had received no blood products
or organ transplants. Her male
partner had been bitten by mosquitoes during his travel but had no signs
of Zika infection, which typically include rash, red eyes, fever and
malaise, He told officials he had only felt tired, which he attributed
to travel. Yet two serum tests confirmed the presence of Zika antibodies
in his blood. "This is not
surprising," Brooks said. "Our recommendations had considered the
transmission from a person who seems otherwise healthy, because four out
of five people who are infected with Zika won't develop symptoms." Though
agreeing that this development could be worrisome to pregnant women,
Brooks said it's "reassuring to us at the CDC that all other cases of
sexual transmission, with the exception of a possible case in France,
have been between people who eventually developed symptoms." The
French case involved a couple who had both traveled to Martinique,
where Zika was active, and was discovered through a routine blood test a
few months after their return. "She
didn't develop Zika until about 40 days after she got home," said
Brooks, "so it's possible she was infected via sex, but it's also
possible that it was a very delayed incubation from a mosquito bite." http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/26/health/zika-transmitted-via-sex-without-symptoms/index.html |
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