Zika worries spread beyond Latin America, the Caribbean
HONOLULU — Health officials said this month that a baby born in a Hawaii hospital is the first in the U.S. with a birth defect linked to the Zika virus, a tropical illness found in Latin American and Caribbean countries.
The Hawaii state Department of Health said the baby’s mother likely contracted the disease while living in Brazil last year and passed it on while her child was in the womb.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday added eight tropical destinations to a travel alert about an illness linked with a severe birth defect and spread by mosquitoes.
Affected newborns have unusually small heads and abnormal brain development.
The new locations are Barbados, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin and Guyana; Cape Verde, off the coast of western Africa; and Samoa in the South Pacific.
Last week’s alert included Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Suriname and Venezuela.
The CDC said pregnant women should consider postponing trips to those destinations.
Questions and answers about the virus:
Q: Is there a risk the virus will spread in Hawaii?
A: Not from this case. The Zika virus is spread when a mosquito bites an infected person and then bites someone else. It is not transmitted from person to person.
Dr. Sarah Park, the Hawaii state epidemiologist, said that the mother no longer had the virus when she arrived in Hawaii and that the baby no longer had it at the time of birth.
One of the mosquitoes that can carry the virus, Aedes aegypti, is not common in Hawaii.
Q: Have people in the U.S. contracted the virus before?
A: The CDC said at least 26 travelers returning to the U.S. have been diagnosed with Zika since 2007 — all of them believed to have caught it overseas. In addition, a person in Puerto Rico who had not traveled was diagnosed with the illness.
Last week, Illinois said two pregnant women tested positive for the virus after traveling to countries where Zika is found.
Q: How does the virus affect people?
A: Zika causes only a mild illness in most people. Those infected can show fever, rash and joint pain that may last several days.
In Brazil, there has been a significant increase in cases of a birth defect linked to Zika. The birth defect is called microcephaly and involves babies being born with unusually small heads that may not have developed properly.
Dr. Cynthia Moore of the CDC told reporters during a conference call this month that it’s hard to predict at birth how the condition will affect a child.
But, in severe cases, babies with microcephaly may have seizures, vision problems and developmental disabilities.
Q: What are medical experts advising people to do?
A: The CDC has issued an alert asking pregnant women to postpone travel to 22 destinations, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The agency also has advised U.S. travelers to take steps to protect themselves against mosquito bites if they visit places in Latin America or the Caribbean where Zika has been spreading. The advice includes wearing long sleeves and long pants and using insect repellent.
Park said the Hawaii case is a reminder that there’s potential for diseases to be introduced to new areas.
“It’s a global village. People travel easily from various areas. You can’t just say that we’re so far away from where the disease is normally recognized that there’s no possibility of ever seeing it where we live,” Park said.