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New York Expands Zika Testing After The Latest "Alarming" News From WHO
By
Miranda Katz
Published Mar 9, 2016
Modified Mar 9, 2016
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By
Miranda Katz
Published Mar 9, 2016
Modified Mar 9, 2016
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The state Department of Health announced today that it will begin offering free testing for the Zika virus to pregnant women whose partners recently traveled to a country with Zika transmission. This comes a day after the World Health Organization announced that there's now substantial evidence of links between Zika and birth defects such as microcephaly, and that the virus can be sexually transmitted more easily than initially thought.
"Reports and investigations in several countries strongly suggest that sexual transmission of the virus is more common than previously assumed," WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan said yesterday, calling this news "alarming."
For the past month, the state DOH has been offering free testing for men and women alike who have traveled to Zika-affected countries and are symptomatic. But with the newly serious risk of contracting the virus through sex with someone who is infected, that coverage is now expanding to any pregnant woman whose partner has been exposed to Zika. In a statement today, state DOH commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said that "this expansion in testing will provide more pregnant women and clinicians with information to guide their healthcare. Moving forward, we will continue to work closely with the CDC to respond to new data on transmission to determine how we can best limit the spread of Zika virus."
The WHO declared Zika virus an international public health emergency in February, which some saw as surprising given that the virus itself is quite mild, especially compared the other three such declarations of emergency: Ebola and polio in 2014, and swine flu in 2009.
Just one in five people infected with Zika virus will show symptoms, and those symptoms are usually mild, including a fever or a rash. But there has been some evidence that links Zika virus in pregnant women to birth defects such as microcephaly, which causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and brains, and Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which can cause temporary paralysis and death.
Though there is still no clearly established causation between Zika virus and such conditions, the evidence is mounting, the WHO said yesterday: apparently nine Zika-affected countries have recently reported increases in Guillan-Barre. In slightly better news, a vaccine against the virus could be ready for human testing as soon as September.
There have been 40 confirmed cases of Zika in the state to date, one of which may have been sexually transmitted. In New York City, there have been 15 confirmed cases, DOH spokesperson Christopher Miller said today—quite the leap from last month's count of 5. In all of these cases, except for the one possible sexual transmission, the virus was contracted abroad.
Zika virus has been spread in Latin American and Caribbean countries by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is not native to New York. However, New York is home to the Aedes albopictus mosquito, which has been known to carry the virus in other areas. Last month, Mayor de Blasio said that he is "very concerned about the onset of the mosquito season at the beginning of April," and that the city is working on a plan for mosquito control.
Miller said that there was a roundtable at City Hall today on mosquito control, and that "we continue to update our plans and services for New York City residents based on the best available evidence we have. We will be using information from this meeting to inform our plans moving forward. We are already stepping up our surveillance and testing here in New York City."
As of last month, the city was "cautiously optimistic" that New Yorkers won't have to worry about catching Zika from mosquitoes here. But if you think you've been exposed to the virus and want more information about free testing, you can call the state's Zika hotline at 1-888-364-4723.
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Miranda Katz
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