According to US public health officials, the zika virus situation for Puerto Rico and other US territories looks particularly grim, with 354 confirmed cases and 37 pregnant women affected.
“We are quite concerned about Puerto Rico, where the virus is spreading throughout the island,” said Dr Anne Schuchat, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) principal deputy director. “We think there could be hundreds of thousands of cases of zika virus in Puerto Rico, and perhaps hundreds of affected babies.”
The mosquito-borne illness began to hit Latin America hard last year.
“Everything we look at with this virus seems to be a bit scarier than we initially thought,” Schuchat said, in a news conference at the White House on Monday.
She said the CDC now estimates the mosquito that spreads the virus is present in about 30 US states, up from an earlier estimate of about 12 states.
For infected pregnant women, the zika virus now looks like it’s a possible problem throughout the pregnancy, not just during the first trimester, Schuchat said.
Most people with the zika virus are asymptomatic, and the mild end of the symptoms spectrum includes fever, rash, muscle pain and headaches. However, the virus can also become a paralyzing autoimmune disease and, if contracted by pregnant women, cause birth defects in their children.
“We have learned that the virus is linked to a broader set of complications in pregnancy, not just the microcephaly, but also prematurity, eye problems and some other conditions,” Schuchat noted.
Microcephaly is a birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the US Virgin Islands Department of Health confirmed the first zika case in a pregnant woman residing on the island of St Croix with no travel history reported. The patient was 34 weeks pregnant when tested for Zika. She has since delivered a healthy baby with normal head circumference, showing no signs of microcephaly.
“Both zika and dengue are potentially dangerous for pregnant women. Zika may be associated with birth defects (microcephaly), and pregnant women are at higher risk of severe complications from dengue fever. Any pregnant woman experiencing symptoms should see their healthcare provider for evaluation,” stated Commissioner Nominee Michelle Davis.
Zika has been confirmed to be transmitted sexually, and the CDC now recommends that pregnant women in areas with active zika transmission, such as in the USVI and Puerto Rico, should either use condoms every time they have sex or they should not have sex during the pregnancy. Sexual transmission of dengue has not been confirmed, but it is theoretically possible.
On Friday, Cuban health authorities reported confirmation of the eighth imported case of a patient with zika virus, a 58-year-old culture worker who came from Venezuela.
In response to the zika virus outbreak, Creative Testing Solutions (CTS) is the first testing laboratory in the US to implement a zika test to ensure the safety of the US blood supply. Currently, the CTS laboratory in Tampa, Florida, tests only Puerto Rico blood donations for zika, since that is the only US state or territory collecting blood in an area with active local transmission of mosquito-borne zika infections.
CTS tests approximately 35 percent of the US blood supply at four high volume laboratories, and is the primary provider of blood donor testing services for Puerto Rico.
On February 16, 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released recommendations to reduce the likelihood of a transfusion transmission of zika virus in areas identified by the CDC as having “active transmission.”
One of the FDA recommended strategies was the development and implementation of a zika test for all blood donations in such areas. The territorial islands of Puerto Rico were immediately classified by the CDC as an area with active transmission.
There are no known transfusion transmissions of zika in the US, and as of April 6, 2016, no local mosquito-borne zika virus disease cases have been reported in the continental US. (Caribbean News Now)
