COLUMBUS – Columbus health officials issued a health advisory on the emerging Zika virus to thousands of area doctors this week.
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Columbus Public Health wants doctors to talk to patients, particularly those who are pregnant or expect to become pregnant, about traveling to areas where the virus is spreading via mosquito bites and has been linked to serious birth defects in infants born to women who contracted the illness.
The World Health Organization announced Thursday that it will convene an emergency meeting to try to find ways to stop the transmission of the virus, which officials said is “spreading explosively” across the Americas.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the United States has 31 confirmed cases in 11 states and the District of Columbia but doubts the virus poses a major threat to the U.S.
All are travel-related, the CDC’s Lyle Petersen said, and “this number is increasing rapidly.” The U.S. also has 20 additional cases because of local transmission in U.S. territories — 19 in Puerto Rico and one in the Virgin Islands (see map).
First identified in Uganda, the Zika virus has now spread into Cape Verde, the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Samoa and South America.
The World Health Organization estimates there could be 3 to 4 million cases of Zika in the Americas over the next year.
The advisory tells doctors to “counsel patients who are planning to travel to endemic areas about prevention of mosquito bites; recommend that pregnant women & women planning to become pregnant not travel to areas with active Zika virus transmission; evaluate infants of women with Zika virus infection during pregnancy for possible congenital infection and neurologic abnormalities and report suspected cases of Zika virus infection as soon as possible to the Infectious Disease Reporting System in order to expedite submission of specimens to the Ohio Department of Health.”
Health officials said 23 countries are affected by mosquitoes that are spreading the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the United States has 31 confirmed cases in 11 states and the District of Columbia.
Federal health regulators are working to deter blood donations from travelers who have visited one of the regions where the virus is prevalent.