WHO revises sex advice in Zika battle
Print Edition
PEOPLE who travel to Zika-hit areas should practice safe sex or have no sex at all for at least eight weeks after their return to avoid sexual transmission of the virus, the World Health Organization said yesterday.
That is double the one month of safe sex previously recommended by the WHO, which said new studies showed the virus could survive in sperm longer than previously thought.
The recommendation is only for men and women who present no symptoms of the virus, which experts agree is behind a surge in cases in Latin America of microcephaly — a serious birth defect in which babies are born with unusually small heads and brains.
If the male partner has shown symptoms of Zika, the couple should practice safe sex or abstain for six months, “to ensure that the infection has left the body and the virus will not be passed to ... the partner,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters.
Women who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant should avoid traveling to areas affected by Zika all together, and if their male partner has traveled to such an area, the couple should practice safe sex or abstain for the remainder of the pregnancy, it said.
It remains unclear how long the virus can persist in body fluids, but a report issued this month showed the sperm of a man returning to Britain from Cook Island remained positive for the virus 62 days after he first detected symptoms.
Zika is mainly spread by two species of Aedes mosquito, but has also been shown to transmit through sexual contact.
The virus also causes the rare, but potentially fatal, Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
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