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The Canadian Public Health Agency is telling pregnant women who visited southern parts of Miami recently to get checked for the Zika virus. This, after U.S health officials have placed an unprecedented travel warning on southern Florida, advising pregnant women and their partners to avoid travelling to the Miami area, after 14 cases of Zika were confirmed. A number that is growing.
Dr. Zane Chagla is an infectious disease expert at St. Joe’s, he says that part of the problem is that only about 20% of people show flu like symptoms of infection.
“The majority of people don’t have symptoms. We know the virus exists in the blood for a weeks, and is tranmissable for men to women for about six months.”
More than 1,650 cases of Zika have been reported so far in United States, 180 in Canada. All the result, for the most part, of travel to a Zika-stricken country or from sex with an infected person. Doctors are recommending women who have been in the affected areas wait two months before getting pregnant, while men should wait 6 months.
This is the first time the centres for disease control has ever told the public not to travel somewhere in the States. Authorities in Florida are doing what they can to combat Zika, including treating and eliminating mosquito breeding sites.
