UK"s first case of sexually transmitted Zika detected

The UK’s first case of sexually transmitted Zika has been detected, health officials believe. They said a woman was likely to have been infected with the virus by her partner, who had recently visited a Zika-hit country.

That was one of two cases of the virus seen by Public Health England (PHE) in the last week, which the body said took the total number of UK Zika diagnoses to 265 since the outbreak began in 2015, including seven pregnant women. Of those, 181 have been confirmed, PHE said in an update released on Wednesday.

“It is important to remember that the main risk relates to travellers to countries classified as high or moderate risk for Zika infection,” said professor Dilys Morgan, PHE’s Zika incident director.

Zika is usually a mild illness, though it can be particularly dangerous in pregnant women because it can cause brain damage and developmental disorders in a baby’s head. The woman believed to have been the victim of a sexually transmitted infection has since made a full recovery.

“PHE’s advice is based on the fact that our main concern is to avoid infection in pregnancy, in order to avoid risk to the unborn child,” Morgan added. Authorities say that men returning from a Zika-hit area should use a condom during sex for six months and women should do so for eight weeks.

Sexual transmission of the virus is uncommon, with only about 60 cases believed to have been seen worldwide, and the mosquito that transmits the virus is not present in the UK, PHE said.

The government’s National Travel Health Network and Centre (NaTHNaC) advised people to protect themselves against mosquito bites and warned pregnant women to avoid all but unavoidable travel to areas reporting high Zika transmission.

“Women who are planning to become pregnant and their partners should discuss their travel plans with their healthcare provider to assess the risk,” NaTHNaC’s director Dr Dipti Patel said.

This week, health officials in Texas declared the first case of Zika transmitted by local mosquitoes, making it the second US state to do so. The World Health Organisation has downgraded Zika from a “global health emergency”, instead defining it as an ongoing threat, like other mosquito-borne diseases.

“News that one case of sexual transmission of Zika has occurred in the UK is not unexpected. About 60 cases of sexual transmission of Zika have been reported worldwide, so we think this is quite rare,” said Prof Jimmy Whitworth of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He told the BBC: “Discovering just how common it is for the virus to be passed during sex by a man or woman is a key focus for Zika researchers. Public Health England’s updated advice is also welcome.

“Zika virus survives in semen longer than other body fluids so recommending male travellers returning from Zika transmission countries, with or without symptoms, practise safe sex for six months is sensible.”

UK"s first case of sexually transmitted Zika detected

Texas faces first case of Zika transmitted by local mosquitoes, officials say

Health officials have announced the first case of Zika transmitted by local mosquitoes in Texas, the second state in the country to find local mosquitoes apparently carrying the virus.

The tropical virus country-hopped through Latin America and the Caribbean in the last year, first arriving in the United States in the territory of Puerto Rico, before arriving in Miami, Florida. Zika can cause severe birth defects in pregnant women infected with the disease.

“We knew it was only a matter of time before we saw a Zika case spread by a mosquito in Texas,” said Dr John Hellerstedt, the state health commissioner.

Until Monday, Texas had 257 confirmed cases of Zika, though all were associated with travel or sexual transmission. Zika is most commonly spread by infected mosquitoes.

“We still don’t believe the virus will become widespread in Texas, but there could be more cases, so people need to protect themselves from mosquito bites,” Hellerstedt said. “Especially in parts of the state that stay relatively warm in the fall and winter.”

The announcement comes one week after Florida governor Rick Scott sought to quell Zika anxiety in Miami.

The governor held a press conference to announce that three miles of Miami Beach, a popular winter tourist destination, was “cleared” of active Zika transmission. Pregnant women are still advised to postpone travel to about 1.5 miles of Miami Beach, and a nearby area of Miami-Dade county called Little River.

The World Health Organization also dropped Zika from the category of “global health emergency”, instead settling in for a long fight against the disease.

However, tools to fight the mosquitoes that carry Zika remain scarce. Mosquitoes can grow resistant to pesticides, and the widespread application of common airborne sprays has prompted outcry in some places, such as Puerto Rico.

Further, alarming discoveries about the virus have continued.

For example, a study released in mid-November found some babies of Zika-infected mothers may develop microcephaly after children appear normal at birth. Children with microcephaly are born with abnormally small heads and suffer severe developmental disorders. Microcephaly is considered the most severe birth defect associated with Zika.

One Texas-based epidemiologist also criticized politicians’ focus on small geographic areas, such as Miami Beach, noting that public health officials are not surveilling for the disease, and that four out of five patients are asymptomatic.

“The idea that Zika is confined to a small, circumspect area of Miami is ridiculous,” said Dr Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. “There’s probably a lot of transmission going on in Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida that we’re not aware of because we’re not really doing active surveillance, so this is not a surprise at all.”

Though Zika infection is believed to be widespread in Puerto Rico, officials said they did not expect the disease to spread as far in Texas. Many epidemiologists believe that widespread window screens and air conditioning in Texas is responsible for hindering the spread of mosquito-borne diseases.

The infected area, in Brownsville, tends to be a hotspot for mosquito-borne diseases, Hotez said, including a recent case of Chikungunya.

The city is one of the poorest in Texas. Brownsville is the southernmost city in Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico bordering the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. In Cameron County, where Brownsville is located, almost half of children live in poverty, according to the Texas Tribune – the highest rate in the state.

Texas faces first case of Zika transmitted by local mosquitoes, officials say

Pressure can be transmitted via Television display

1 group was given tough arithmetic queries and interviewed to induce direct anxiety.

The group of 211 observers simply watched the test and interviews via a a single-way mirror and more than video transmissions. As anticipated, 95 per cent of the individuals positioned under direct stress showed signs of stress.

However, 26 per cent of observers had an boost in cortisol, a hormone released in response to pressure.

The impact of tension was particularly higher when a topic was observing a romantic partner in a nerve-racking scenario (forty per cent) but it applied to strangers as effectively (ten per cent).

When observers watched urgent occasions by means of a one particular-way mirror, 30 per cent skilled a demanding response. An additional 24 per cent of observers felt underneath anxiety when they watched the events unfold over the video. Dr Veronika Engert, one of the study’s authors, said: “This implies that even tv programmes depicting the struggling of other individuals can transmit that pressure to viewers.

“The reality that we could measure this empathic pressure in the kind of a important hormone release was astonishing. There should be a transmission mechanism by means of which the target’s state can elicit a similar state in the observer .”

The researchers explained anxiety gets to be a issue when it is chronic.

The findings are published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Pressure can be transmitted via Television display