Over 5,100 Noncongenital Zika Cases Reported in U.S. in 2016

MONDAY, March 12, 2018 (HealthDay News) — A total of 5,168 noncongenital Zika virus disease cases were reported from U.S. states and the District of Columbia in 2016, with 95 percent of cases identified in travelers returning from Zika virus-affected areas, according to research published in the March 9 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Victoria Hall, D.V.M., from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues reviewed data on noncongenital Zika virus disease cases with symptom onset during Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2016, in the 50 U.S. States and the District of Columbia.

The researchers identified 5,168 noncongenital Zika virus disease cases from the U.S. states and District of Columbia in 2016. Ninety-five percent of the cases were identified in travelers returning from Zika virus-affected areas, with the most common travel destination the Caribbean (61 percent of cases). Overall, 4 percent of cases were acquired through presumed local mosquito-borne transmission; 1 percent were acquired through other routes, primarily sexual transmission.

“It is important that providers in the United States continue to test symptomatic patients who live in or recently traveled to areas with ongoing Zika virus transmission or had unprotected sex with someone who lives in or traveled to those areas,” the authors write.

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