But, it's not just mosquitoes, health officials also discussed the possibility of the virus being sexually transmitted. This is after someone from Texas was reportedly infected with Zika after having sex with someone who had just travelled from Venezuela. The Centers for Disease Control has issued a warning for men who have traveled to Zika-affected areas to abstain from sex with their partner -especially if she is pregnant. Today health professionals issued that same warning to Belizeans.
Dr. Marvin Manzanero, Dir. of Health Services "The recommendation I guess would be we want to have protected sex. We were asked earlier this morning to put any particular precautionary messages outside. I guess we can continue to try to engage people in terms of condom use. I am not so sure how effective we will be in terms of zika, because I don't know if we have been effective in HIV for example, in promoting condom use. So I don't know if zika would be any trigger for people to start using condoms as a means of protection or as a means on contraception, which is what is being documented. I think our message will be sexual transmission is a possible form of getting zika. If you have been in an area where zika is documented, but I don't know if we will implement specific measures beyond the messages that we can share."
Dr. Natalia Largaespada-Beer, MCH Survellance "Persons traveling to communities with active zika virus transmission especially men. When they come back to the country, they should be utilizing condom for at least 28 days. If the person travel to a community with active transmission of zika virus and confirmed to have an infection by zika virus then the recommendation is to utilize a condom for 6 months. That is what is documented and recommended so far by the World Health Organization."
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But, it's not just mosquitoes, health officials also discussed the possibility of the virus being sexually transmitted. This is after someone from Texas was reportedly infected with Zika after having sex with someone who had just travelled from Venezuela. The Centers for Disease Control has issued a warning for men who have traveled to Zika-affected areas to abstain from sex with their partner -especially if she is pregnant. Today health professionals issued that same warning to Belizeans.
"The recommendation I guess would be we want to have protected sex. We were asked earlier this morning to put any particular precautionary messages outside. I guess we can continue to try to engage people in terms of condom use. I am not so sure how effective we will be in terms of zika, because I don't know if we have been effective in HIV for example, in promoting condom use. So I don't know if zika would be any trigger for people to start using condoms as a means of protection or as a means on contraception, which is what is being documented. I think our message will be sexual transmission is a possible form of getting zika. If you have been in an area where zika is documented, but I don't know if we will implement specific measures beyond the messages that we can share."
Dr. Natalia Largaespada-Beer, MCH Survellance