A person in Texas has been infected with the Zika virus likely through sexual intercourse in the first case of the illness being transmitted in the
United States as the outbreak spreads throughout Latin America.The unidentified person hadn't traveled abroad but had sex with a person who returned from Venezuela and contracted Zika, Dallas County health officials said on Tuesday. The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) issued a statement saying lab tests confirmed the non-traveler was infected with Zika.
The virus, which may be connected to thousands of birth defects in the Americas, is primarily spread through mosquito bites, but investigators had been exploring the possibility it could be sexually transmitted.
A Colorado researcher who picked up the virus in Africa reportedly infected his wife back home in 2008, and Zika was found in one man's semen in Tahiti.
"It's very rare but this is not new," Zachary Thompson, director of the Dallas County Health and Human Services, told WFAA-TV in Dallas. "We always looked at the point that this could be transmitted sexually."