CDC confirms 6 cases of Zika virus in Texas | FOX25
by:Cox Media Group National Content Desk Updated: Jan 31, 2016 - 6:35 PM
A female Aedes aegypti mosquito acquires a blood meal on the arm of a researcher at the Biomedical Sciences Institute in the Sao Paulo’s University, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Aedes aegypti is a vector for transmitting the Zika virus. (AP)
There are six confirmed cases of the Zika virus in Texas, according to the Department of Health Services.
Those infected contracted the virus while traveling abroad. There still are no locally transmitted cases in the U.S.
Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that is especially dangerous for pregnant women. The most common symptoms are fever, rash, joint pain and headache.
The little-known virus re-emerged in Brazil in 2015. Cases have been confirmed throughout South and Central America as well as Puerto Rico.
In the U.S.,cases have been confirmed in 11 statesincluding three women in Florida; two women in Illinois and a woman in Hawaii who gave birth to a child who contracted the virus and was born with an unusually small head.