Zika menace is on the rise! As the devastating Zika virus storming through the Caribbean and Latin America threatens to hit parts of the US such as Florida, people are getting more inquisitive about how it can be transmitted.
The Zika virus, which has been related to paralysis in adults and brain damage in infants, could be transmitted by sex, confirm reports. Although two cases of sexually transmitted virus have been detected in medical literature. Virus shows symptoms such as rash, fever, conjunctivitis and headache and almost 21 countries have been affected.
Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, the evidence is insufficient to warrant such a warning. While the two instances suggest a theoretical risk of sexual transmission, they note the primary vector is clearly mosquitoes.
The first case occurred in 2008 in Colorado, where Brian D Foy, a biologist specializing in insect-borne diseases at Colorado State University, contracted the virus while on a field trip to Senegal. He and his colleague Kevin C. Kobylinski had been collecting mosquitoes in a south-eastern village where they were often bitten by mosquitoes many times and after return home, Professor Foy fell ill and symptoms included rashes, extreme tiredness, swollen wrist, fatigue and headache. After few days, his wife showed same symptoms and their blood samples later tested positive for the Zika virus. Neither passed the virus to their close friends and children. Couple felt that it could have been sexually transmitted.
The second episode occurred in 2013, when scientists found Zika virus in an unidentified 44-year Tahitian man’s semen. After some time, it was disappear from his blood. French scientists are investigating high level of virus found in semen but its ambiguous that how long the virus had persisted in his body.
While talking about his study on Zika virus, Dr. William Schaffner, chief of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical School said, “It was imperative that research on possible sexual transmission of Zika be done in Brazil or another Latin American country experiencing an outbreak”. Further he said, “Two suspect cases are not really enough to warrant a large public health recommendation from the C.D.C But it’s provocative, so someone else could recommend it and it certainly should be studied.”
