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.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS