The United States is considering advising pregnant women not to travel to areas where the Zika virus, which causes birth defects, is endemic.
Would the fight against the Zika virus go through the limitation of travel? In any case, this is what the American health authorities are considering. As the first imported cases are diagnosed, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is evaluating a prevention strategy. For the first time, they could recommend that pregnant women limit their travel to Latin America and the Caribbean.
If the American health authorities are debating the interest of such a measure, it is because the burden of the Zika virus is growing. The infection is often asymptomatic. But it can manifest as skin rashes and bouts of fever. The risk is particularly high for pregnant women.
14 endemic countries
Exposure to the Zika virus, transmitted by mosquitoes, during the first trimester of pregnancy would promote the occurrence of microcephaly. This anomaly in the growth of the cranium induces repercussions on the development of the brain of the newborn. In Brazil alone, where the epidemic has been raging since the spring of 2015, some 3,000 cases have been diagnosed.
However, a causal relationship between the virus and these cases of microcephaly has not yet been established. “It is very important to confirm or rule out a causal link between Zika virus infection in pregnant women and the occurrence of microcephaly, by conducting intensive research; this includes careful case-control studies and other epidemiological work as well as attempts to replicate this phenomenon in an animal model,” said Anthony Fauci and David Morens of the American Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). in an editorial in New England Journal of Medicine.
The final opinion of the CDC should be made this January 14 or 15, according to a spokesperson interviewed by the New York Times. Preventive measures are urgent: the United States has already diagnosed an imported case in Houston (Texas). Puerto Rico, one of its unincorporated territories, is endemic, like 14 other countries in the area – including the French department of Guyana.
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