Men from three Florida counties should not donate sperm because of a small risk of spreading the Zika virus, US health officials said on Monday.
The guidance had previously applied to Miami-Dade County, the only place in Florida where there is evidence the virus was spread by mosquitoes. However, infections were reported in people in South Florida who could not clearly be linked to Miami-Dade.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the advice should extend to two counties north of Miami — Broward and Palm Beach.
The recommendation applies to men who lived or traveled in those counties since June 15. Zika is mainly spread by mosquito bites but it can also be spread through sex. People can be infected without getting sick and the virus can remain in semen for months.
There is no evidence of a pregnant women being infected by Zika through a sperm donation, and such a risk is considered low, centers officials said.
Infection during pregnancy can lead to brain-related birth defects.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates sperm donations and previously advised sperm banks they should not accept donors if they had been diagnosed with Zika or had been to an area with widespread Zika within the past six months.
Sperm banks should heed the centers’ advice discouraging donations from men in the three counties, an FDA spokeswoman said.
There are 12 sperm donor banks in the three south Florida counties, centers officials said.
While blood donations can be tested for Zika, there is not a good test for semen, the FDA said.
The last case of mosquito transmission of Zika in Florida was in December last year. However, officials think mosquitoes might start spreading it again this summer. In the continental US last year, 221 people got Zika from mosquitoes, most in the Miami area.
There is no evidence that mosquitoes in Broward or Palm Beach were spreading it, said Denise Jamieson, who is leading the centers’ Zika emergency efforts.
Officials suspect the local infections occurred in Miami-Dade, she 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
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
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
RSS