Zika virus continues to be a global health threat and now, the Centers for Disease Control confirms that the virus can be sexually transmitted.
"CDC has confirmed through laboratory testing the first case of Zika virus infection in a non-traveler in the continental United States," a spokeswoman for CDC told ABC News. The first non-traveler case of Zika virus is from Dallas County, Texas and found to be sexually transmitted.
The Dallas County Health and Human Services received confirmation from CDC after it reported of a patient who contracted the virus. The patient, whose identity is withheld, was infected after having sex with a person who had fallen ill after visiting a country where the virus is present.
"Now that we know Zika virus can be transmitted through sex, this increases our awareness campaign in educating the public about protecting themselves and others," DCHHS director Zachary Thompson said in a statement. Thompson added that apart from abstinence, wearing condoms is the best way to prevent any sexually transmitted infections.
Zika virus is usually transmitted through the bite of mosquitoes, but there were rare cases reported that the virus can be transmitted through sex and blood transfusion.
The Dallas County case is not the first case of sexually transmitted Zika virus. In 2008, two men, a biologist and a graduate student, went to Senegal to collect mosquitoes to study malaria.
When these two men flew back to Colorado, they developed an illness a week after. The biologist's wife also fell ill with the same symptoms a few days after. Since the wife never left Colorado, she and her husband realized that the virus may have been passed on when they had sex.
Now that the virus have been confirmed to be transmissible through sexual contact, health experts are advising people who have symptoms of a mosquito-borne illness to seek medical care, especially if they have visited regions known to have Zika virus.
Currently, there is no vaccine or drugs to prevent and treat Zika virus infections, so the best way to avoid the dreaded illness is to avoid getting bitten by mosquitoes and sexual contact with an infected person.
