A pregnant woman who contracted locally-acquired Zika virus in Florida presented with a rash on her trunk, arms, and the roof of her mouth, researchers said.
Notably, this was the first non-travel associated Zika case to be confirmed in the United States. Neither the patient nor her partner are thought to have traveled outside the country in 2 years.
Lucy Chen, MD, a dermatology resident at the University of Miami, and colleagues detailed the case of the patient in a special online correspondence in the New England Journal of Medicine.
NAID Urges Continued Research on Zika and Its Health Effects
Citing unanswered questions about not only the development of the Zika virus, but the potential long-term effects, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci, MD, argued that the scientific and public health community should not become complacent about researching Zika, as it becomes endemic to this country.
Fauci detailed how it took years to understand the chronic health effects of other endemic arboviruses, West Nile and Chikungunya. In a special online viewpoint in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Fauci stated that in addition to Zika's potential impact on children, there is little known about how Zika affects the male reproductive system. Mouse studies have found testicular damage, which could impact male fertility.
New Insight Into How Zika Attacks Cells
A new study in mBio, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, found that the method by which Zika and dengue viruses replicate and infect a host may be different from that of many other viruses.
Researchers said that in many viral infections, a cell senses the presence of a virus and initiates a stress response. But both Zika and dengue do not appear to elicit this response -- instead, they block a cell's ability to fight off infection, including the ability to deploy antiviral proteins, while replicating their own proteins within the host. The authors noted that the mechanism by which this occurs is not known, but that this research may eventually help in drug development for treating flavivirus infections.