Your summer travel plans and the Zika virus. Are you planning on traveling to Latin America or the Caribbean? If you are traveling and thinking about having children or are pregnant, you need to learn more about the Zika virus. You may not even know that you were infected with the Zika virus and your unborn child may have serious health issues.
Key Takeaways:
- In particular, the yellow-fever mosquitoes that carry the virus don’t survive at elevations higher than 6,500 feet. So if your plan is to visit Mexico City or go mountain-climbing in Argentina, the odds of being bitten there are close to nil.
- Zika infection is usually mild, and most people don’t realize they had it. Roughly 20 percent of infected adults have symptoms such as rash, fever, joint pain or red eyes for up to a week — a nuisance on vacation, but not worse than other hazards.
- No cases of sexual transmission between women have been reported. But whenever a female partner is pregnant or could become pregnant, the C.D.C. advises condoms or other barrier methods be used.
“To avoid infecting a sexual partner, a man who experienced symptoms of infection during a trip to a country in which Zika is circulating, or after returning, must use condoms during oral, anal or vaginal sex for six months.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/health/travel-zika-virus-faq.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
Leave a Reply