Zika virus infections have been confirmed in nine pregnant women in the US, including one who gave birth to a baby with a rare birth defect, health officials said on Friday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it is investigating 10 more reports of pregnant travelers with the Zika virus. All got the virus while visiting or living in places with Zika virus outbreaks.
Also on Friday, the CDC issued a caution to people planning to attend the Olympics this summer in Rio de Janeiro.
The US cases add to reports out of Brazil. Officials there are exploring a possible link to babies born with unusually small heads, a rare birth defect called microcephaly, which can signal underlying brain damage.
Zika virus has become epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean since last fall. The virus, mainly spread through mosquito bites, causes mild illness or no symptoms in most people.
Since August last year, the CDC has tested 257 pregnant women for the Zika virus; eight were positive and a state lab confirmed a ninth.
Three of the women have delivered babies; two of the newborns are apparently healthy and one was born with microcephaly.
Two had miscarriages, but it is unknown if the Zika virus infection was the cause.
Two women had abortions, one after scans showed the fetus had an undeveloped brain. Details were not provided for the second case.
Two pregnancies are continuing with no reported complications.
Five of the women had Zika virus symptoms in the first trimester, including the miscarriages, abortions and newborn with microcephaly.
In its report on Friday, the CDC did not give the women’s hometowns; state health officials have said there were two pregnant women with Zika virus in Illinois, three in Florida and one in Hawaii, who gave birth to a baby with microcephaly. That mother had lived in Brazil early in her pregnancy.
The CDC said all are US residents, but it declined to answer a question on their citizenship.
The health agency said the nine women had been to places with Zika virus outbreaks — American Samoa, Brazil, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Samoa.
Those destinations are among the 30 places now on the CDC’s travel alert. It recommends that pregnant women postpone trips to those areas.
While the link between Zika virus and the birth defect has not been confirmed, the possibility has prompted health officials to take cautionary steps to protect fetuses. That includes advice that Zika vrius-infected men who have pregnant partners use condoms or abstain from sex.
In new guidance issued on Friday night, the CDC addressed people planning to travel to Brazil for this year’s Olympic Games in August and this year’s Paralympic Games in September.
The agency again advised that pregnant women consider not going and that their male sexual partners use condoms after the trip or abstain from sex during the pregnancy.
Women who are trying to become pregnant should talk to their doctors before making the trip, the CDC advised.
The CDC also recommends that all travelers use insect repellent while in Zika virus outbreak areas.
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