The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
State: Stay vigilant about Zika
Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have loosened their guidelines on testing for the mosquito-borne virus Zika, the state Department of Public Health maintained that people still need to be vigilant about the disease.
“While the CDC has issued new guidelines, the basic warning, especially for pregnant women and their sexual partners remains: avoid travelling to areas where the Zika virus is present, but if travel is unavoidable, protect yourself from mosquito bites and use condoms for the duration of the pregnancy,” said DPH Commissioner Dr. Raul Pino in a news release.
Though Zika causes mild or no symptoms in most people, in pregnant women it has been linked to several birth defects, including microcephaly, a condition in which a baby is born with a small head, or the head stops growing after birth.
In Connecticut, DPH began surveillance for the Zika virus on Feb. 15, 2016. No locally acquired cases have been reported — every positive case in the state has been related to travel.
As of July 25, 1,805 people have been tested for Zika virus in Connecticut. Of those, 118 patients, including eight pregnant women, have tested positive for Zika. An additional 61 patients, including 47 pregnant woman, have tested positive for Flavivirus, a related class of viruses that include Zika, dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, and West Nile virus. Of the 179 total Zika or Flavivirus positive patients, the majority contracted the virus while in Puerto Rico (47), the Dominican Republic (38), Jamaica (17), Guatemala (11) and Haiti (10).
The health department will also continue to monitor the pregnancy outcomes of women who tested positive for Zika or Flavivirus, along with any babies with birth defects born to Zika-exposed mothers. The state health department is already following four babies born with birth defects potentially associated with Zika virus to mothers who tested positive for the illness.
The new CDC guidelines, announced Monday, take into account the decline in new Zika cases in areas previously affected by the disease and the increased likelihood of false positive test results among women who were exposed to the virus but never developed symptoms.
Previously, the CDC advised that health care providers should ask all pregnant women about recent travel and that women who traveled to an area with ongoing Zika virus transmission during pregnancy should be evaluated for Zika virus infection and tested in accordance with CDC guidance.
Under the new guidelines, doctors are still advised to ask pregnant women about possible Zika exposure at every prenatal visit, but the CDC only recommends that pregnant women recently exposed to and showing symptoms of Zika virus be tested.
Pregnant women who have been exposed to Zika, through travel or sexual exposure, but who do not have any symptoms are not recommended to have Zika virus testing.
The Connecticut State Public Health Laboratory will continue conducting Zika virus testing for pregnant Connecticut women.