Canadian health officials are telling pregnant women or those planning a pregnancy to avoid travelling to South Florida and countries grappling with Zika virus.
In a travel notice, the Public Health Agency of Canada ranked Florida as a Level 2 in risk, which means people heading that way need to take “special precautions.”
“A notice at this level would be issued if there is an outbreak in a limited geographic location, a newly identified disease in the region or a change in the existing pattern of disease,” it explains on its website.
The next level is to avoid non-essential travel.
Earlier this month, the federal agency told pregnant women who visited the Miami-Dade and Broward counties in Florida on or after June 15 to take extra precautions against the Zika virus.
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Canadian chief Public Health Officer Dr. Gregory Taylor says because four million Canadians visit Florida annually, an unknown number could be affected by the latest U.S. discovery.
Zika has touched down in Miami – Florida already has 25 locally-acquired cases, meaning people are infected by mosquitoes within the region and not from travel to affected countries.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is even advising all pregnant women to avoid a 10-block section of Miami where the virus has surfaced.
For months, global health officials have suspected a link between Zika virus and microcephaly as Brazil deals with the biggest epidemic of the virus to date.
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Health officials in El Salvador, Brazil, Jamaica, Ecuador, Honduras and Colombia told residents to delay pregnancy until doctors better understand if the infection tampers with brain development in infants.
So far, it’s been linked to a 20-fold increase in microcephaly, in which newborns have irregularly small heads and underdeveloped brains.
The latest worry is that Zika might affect adult brain cells too, causing damage in brain functioning.
Taylor says any pregnant women who visited the area on or after June 15 should see their health-care providers for testing.
He says women who have been to the region should wait two months before trying to become pregnant.
And because the virus can linger in sperm, men should wait several months longer before having unprotected sex in case they get their partners pregnant.
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The latest PHAC warning advises Canadian women, who are expecting or hoping to get pregnant, to stay away from other countries with Zika virus outbreaks, too.
As of Aug. 10, the World Health Organization identified 69 countries touched by the disease. They include much of South and Central America right into the Caribbean.
Canada has three maternal-to-fetal transmissions of Zika virus, including one case with severe neurological congenital anomalies. Another 220 travel-related cases have been documented, according to government updates.
Alberta alone has 26-lab confirmed cases of Zika. Twenty-five are from areas currently experiencing outbreaks – all were acquired due to travel.
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Zika is relatively harmless in adults, presenting with mild, flu-like symptoms in most people. Patients often encounter a headache, followed by a rash, lethargy and runny, red eyes as common symptoms.
- With files from the Canadian Press and the Associated Press
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
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