A baby born with brain damage at a hospital in Oahu, Hawaii, was infected by the Zika virus, US health officials confirmed on Saturday, apparently the first case of the mosquito-borne virus in a birth on US soil.
The mother became ill with the Zika virus while living in Brazil in May last year and the baby was likely infected in the womb, Hawaiian state health officials and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
“There’s no indication at this point that there’s any Zika virus circulating in Hawaii,” US Centers for Disease Control spokesman Tom Skinner said.
“But I think its important for us to understand that there are going to be imported cases of Zika to the United States and we won’t be surprised if we start to see some local transmission of the virus,” Skinner said.
Zika can be transmitted by a mosquito that has bitten an infected person.
On Friday, US health officials issued a travel warning for 14 nations and territories in the Caribbean and Latin America where infection with Zika is a risk. The US Centers for Disease Control in particular cautioned pregnant women not to travel to those areas as Zika has been linked to serious birth defects.
The travel alert applies to Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.
The centers also advised women who are trying to become pregnant to consult a doctor before traveling to those areas.
In the Hawaii case, a doctor recognized the possibility of a Zika infection in the newborn baby with microcephaly and alerted state officials, the Hawaii Department of Health said in a written statement.
The infection was confirmed by a US Centers for Disease Control laboratory test and an advisory sent to doctors statewide.
The Hawaii Department of Health emphasized that neither the mother nor baby were infectious and that there have been no recorded cases of Zika virus acquired in Hawaii, although six people have been identified there who were infected outside the US.
Zika virus is transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, which also spread dengue and chikungunya viruses and are common in Texas, Florida and elsewhere in the US.
The virus is usually a mild illness with fever, rash and joint pain. There is no preventive vaccine or treatment, the Centers for Disease Control said.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
Myanmar yesterday published a parliamentary bill proposing the death sentence for those who detain or violently coerce people into working in online scam centers. Internet fraud factories have flourished in Myanmar, part of Southeast Asia’s scam economy, targeting Internet users worldwide with romance and cryptocurrency investment cons. The multibillion-dollar black market attracts many willing employees, but repatriated foreigners have also reported being trafficked to sites in Myanmar and tortured by scam center operators. The draft legislation would allow capital punishment for “violence, torture, unlawful arrest and detention, or cruel treatment against another person for the purpose of forcing them to commit online scams.” The
RSS