Sexually-transmitted Zika case confirmed in Texas

DALLAS (AP) -- Health officials in Texas on Tuesday reported the first case of the Zika virus being transmitted within the United States amid the current outbreak in Latin America - a person who was infected through sex.

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Dallas County health officials said the unidentified person had not traveled but had sex with a person who had returned from Venezuela and fallen ill with Zika, which has been linked to birth defects in the Americas. The virus is primarily spread through mosquito bites, but investigators had been exploring the possibility it could be sexually transmitted. There was a report of a Colorado researcher who picked up the virus in Africa and apparently spread it to his wife back home in 2008, and it 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." More...

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