Sexual Transmission Of Zika Virus Between Gay Men Confirmed

First case of sexual transmission of Zika virus between gay men confirmed

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed the first ever case of sexual transmission of the Zika virus between two gay men.

The CDC say that the sexual transmission occurred in Dallas this January between two men who had unprotected sex.

Statnews.com reports:

While gay men who want to avoid Zika infection should take note, the lesson here applies to both men and women: Zika infection can be contracted through unprotected anal sex.

Dr. John Brooks, from the CDC’s division of HIV/AIDS prevention, said the case doesn’t change the agency’s recommendations on how to avoid sexual spread of the virus, which were based on the assumption that various types of sex could transmit Zika. But it gives scientists an example to point to, he said.

“It’s not just theoretical. It’s happened,” said Brooks, who was one of the authors of the report.

The new findings were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The authors are from the Dallas County Health Department and the CDC.

“The take-home message is you have to consider any kind of intimate contact between an infected person with Zika and a non-infected person as a potential risk situation, regardless of gender,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Osterholm, who was not an author of the report on the Dallas case, noted it’s still not clear if the virus can be transmitted through kissing or oral sex, though the virus is found in both saliva and semen. “That’s difficult to tease out,” he said.

A report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine highlights that difficulty. Scientists from France reported on a case of sexual transmission of Zika from a man infected abroad to his female partner. The two had unprotected vaginal sex without ejaculation and oral sex with ejaculation.

Brooks said the issue needs more study, but he suspects transmission by saliva isn’t a regular feature with the Zika virus.

“Were saliva an important mode of transmission, my expectation would be that we would have seen the epidemiology of cases evolve differently,” he said. “We’re just not getting a signal.”

Since the Zika outbreaks in the Americas began, seven cases of sexual transmission of the virus have been observed in the United States. And five other countries — Argentina, Chile, France, Italy, and New Zealand — have reported sexual transmission cases.

The Dallas case involved a man who had been infected with the virus while traveling in Venezuela. Two days after he returned home, his symptoms developed. A week after his return, his longtime partner, who had not traveled outside the country, became ill.

The investigators tried to rule out the possibility that the second man might have been infected locally by a mosquito. Mosquito traps set up around the couple’s home collected some Culex mosquitoes, but no Aedes moquitoes, the type believed to be the main culprit in spread of Zika virus.

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