Zika Virus Travel Warnings Spread to 8 More Countries
The mosquito-borne Zika virus is increasing its spread in the Caribbean and Latin America, with the Centers for Disease Control on Friday adding eight more countries to its travel-advisory list – that makes 22 countries total where pregnant women are being advised to reconsider travel.
The new countries where the CDC is cautioning travelers to avoid mosquito bites are these: Barbados, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, Guyana, Cape Verde, and Samoa. You can find the remaining countries on the advisory list on the CDC’s site.
In most cases, symptoms from Zika are rare and mild. but as the head of Biological Sciences at Purdue University recently told Yahoo Travel, when a pregnant woman is infected, the fetus can be affected too, leading to microcephaly – a potentially deadly underdevelopment of his or her brain.
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A health worker in Lima, Peru fumigates a cemetery for mosquitoes in reaction to the Zika virus outbreak. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
The CDC reported this week that a dozen cases of Zika infection have been reported in the U.S., and they’re believed to have stemmed from travel abroad.
In Brazil alone, nearly 4,000 cases of microcephaly have been reported in the past year, and health officials there believe there’s a link to the roughly 1 million cases of Zika infection. The Brazilian Health Ministry says 80 percent of those infected showed no symptoms, but those who did showed fever, rashes, and muscle pain for several days.
What’s more, the New York Times reports that disease specialists in Brazil are investigating a possible link between Zika virus and a very rare condition that leads to the victim being completely paralyzed for several weeks and needing life support to survive. The Times reports the CDC is helping Brazil investigate the link.
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