The United States records its first sexually transmitted case of the Zika virus

The US has recorded a rare case of the Zika virus, transmitted through sex and not mosquito bite, after a patient was reported to have been infected in Dallas, Texas by sexual contact.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) confirms that the infected patient had slept with her partner who recently returned from Venezuela with the mosquito-borne virus. Test results have shown that the Zika virus is present in the blood of the woman, however, there was no risk to a developing fetus in this case.

Prior to this discovery, there have been only two documented cases linking Zika to sex, the first in 2008 in Senegal and the second in 2013 in French Polynesia.

Zika is currently spreading through the Americas and the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the disease a global public health emergency. The virus is carried by mosquitoes and has been linked to thousands of babies being born with a condition called microcephaly.

CDC has also documented cases of virus transmission during labor, blood transfusion and laboratory exposure.

Source: BBC