CHICAGO, (Reuters) – U.S. health officials yesterday issued interim guidelines for health care professionals in the United States caring for infants born to mothers who traveled or lived in an area with Zika virus transmission during pregnancy.
The guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call for pediatricians to work closely with obstetricians caring for pregnant women exposed to the virus during pregnancy, monitoring fetal ultrasounds and testing infants with signs of a birth defect called microcephaly marked by small head size.
The guidelines come after thousands of infants in Brazil were born with microcephaly, which was believed to be linked to Zika infections. In studies of the current outbreak in Brazil, genetic material from the Zika virus has been identified in studies of brain tissue, placenta and amniotic fluid from several infants with microcephaly and from miscarried fetuses from women infected with the virus.
