US: Zika virus reportedly transferred from male-to-male for the first time

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed officially that Zika can be transferred through anal sex, as reports come in of transmission between a couple from Dallas.

The Zika virus, which is commonly passed through mosquitoes, has been declared as a global public health emergency by The World Health Organization. Doctors have described it as “a pandemic in progress”, causing infants to be born with microcephaly, which is when the brain develops at a much slower rate, and it has also been linked to Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare nervous system disorder that can cause temporary paralysis.

Studies are now being done to assess how long the virus can survive in semen, and thus how long it is possible that the infection could be passed onto a sexual partner. The virus has previously been detected two months after symptoms began, reports say.

The majority of people who have been diagnosed with the Zika virus so far have been asymptomatic, but it is not yet clear whether a lack of symptoms means that the virus is not present in the semen. Cases of the virus being detected in the semen has been limited to the men who had shown symptoms, currently.   Read more via Attitude