Travelers returning from areas affected by the Zika virus should refrain from sexual intercourse or have protected sex for ‘at least eight weeks’, and not just four, now says the WHO
In its new recommendations for the prevention of sexual transmission of Zika virus, the World Health Organization adds that people should wait ‘ six months if the male partner has symptoms ‘.
….this time period is required to ensure that the infection has disappeared from the body and that the virus cannot be transmitted (…) to the partner”, explained WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier.
The Zika virus is associated with Latin America to an explosion of hydrencephaly, a serious and irreversible malformation characterized by an abnormally small skull size, as well as neurological diseases in adults, including Guillain-Barré syndrome.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito is regarded as being the main sourceo of transmission of Zika virus, but “increasingly new evidence has shown that it is also sexually transmitted.”
