The World Health
Organization on Tuesday officially advised pregnant women to avoid areas where
the Zika virus is spreading.
There are currently 31 countries and territories
in Latin America and the Caribbean. “The onus is on countries to report where
they are having outbreaks,” said Dr. David L. Heymann, chairman of the WHO’s
Zika emergency committee. “Then it’s up to the pregnant women to decide whether
they want to travel there.”
Dr.
Margaret Chan, the agency’s director general, also announced that sexual
transmission was “more common than previously assumed,” warning pregnant women
and their partners who have been in Zika-afflicted areas to practice abstinence
or safe sex to avoid transmitting the virus.
This is the first time
the committee has issued a travel warning for pregnant women, but they did not
ask women in areas where Zika is circulating to delay their pregnancies as some
countries have done. Nevertheless, Dr. Chan did say that women who choose to do
so should be given access to contraception.
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