Zika Update: Experts Now Focusing on Its Sexual Transmission

The Zika virus is one of the scariest, most dangerous, and widespread epidemics to hit the world in recent times. Recently it was only believed to be spread through mosquito bites, but now it is believed that the virus can also be transmitted through sexual means.

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has even described the sexual transmission of the Zika virus as an "unprecedented emergency" in an article published just this week in the official Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Frieden also noted in the article he wrote "never before, to our knowledge has a mosquito-borne virus been associated with human birth defects or been capable of sexual transmission."

There have been about 491 cases of the Zika virus attributed to transmission through sexual means. This becomes even more scary when you consider that children whose mother were afflicted with the deadly virus during their pregnancy usually have birth defects, most notably of which is the dreaded microcephaly. Screening for the Zika virus is at an all time high with reports stating that more or less 3,000 pregnant women have been screened for it in New York City alone. That number is sure to rise thanks to these recent findings.

Doctors and experts in New York have recently held a talk, explaining the previously little understood effects of the sexual transmission of the Zika virus. The main message as said in a report by the New York Times was "do not put your child at risk." And luckily, this message seems to have stuck with the people who attended the New York talks. However, due to the fact that much is still not known about the Zika virus, the greatness of the threat of sexual Zika transmission is still relatively unknown as well.