Doctors say not to fear Zika virus

There are a lot of unknowns with Zika, but there’s no reason to be scared.

That was the message of a lecture about the mosquito-borne virus at South Nassau Communities Hospital on Monday, which the hospital live streamed. The full talk is available at youtu.be/FvbR2mQapEg, and the question and answer session is on youtu.be/Hfe_DaLp3Jc. About 90 people attended in person.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Aaron Glatt and obstetrician Dr. Nick Tarricone led the discussion.

“You need to understand that Zika is not new,” Glatt said. “Zika has been around for probably 50 years, it just hasn’t caused a lot of problems. We’re not sure why it hasn’t caused a lot of problems until now.” He said that some have theorized that a mutation in the virus is responsible for its current state.

Glatt used slides from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in his presentation to emphasize that he presented was the official and prevailing information on Zika.

First of all, in recorded cases so far, people have only received Zika from either an infected mosquito in an infected country or sex with an infected man who had — at some point — displayed symptoms of the virus.

“Right now I want to reassure everybody that there has not been a single case of Zika acquired in the United States,” Glatt said. “Not one. Every single one of the several hundred cases that has been identified so far in the United States has been from a person who has traveled to an endemic area.”

So far there are no recorded cases of Zika being transferred from blood transfusions, from a woman during sex, or of an uninfected mosquito biting an infected person and transferring the virus to someone else. Glatt said that while these and other scenarios were theoretically possible, people have not been infected this way. Infected mosquitoes have not even reached the United States. Nevertheless, people should still take precautions against mosquito bites.