Zika: 234 pregnant women with virus reported in US, CDC says

The CDC could not release many details regarding the births, however

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Health officials said that at least 234 women were infected with the Zika virus during their pregnancies in the United States.

While the Center for Disease Control and Prevention did not disclose how many actually gave birth to the children, they did say that as many as six cases with abnormalities, the New York Times reports.

Three babies died before birth and exhibited evidence of birth defects; three other babies were born with birth defects.

CDC officials say they cannot disclose information regarding the pregnancies, citing confidentiality concerns, but will continue to release information about the births as they happen.

“We’re sort of in a hard place,” Dr Denise Jamieson, who leads the pregnancy and birth defects team at the CDC, told reporters. “We can’t provide a lot of information about where these women are in their pregnancy. We don’t want to inadvertently disclose information about difficult decisions these women are making about their pregnancies.”

The CDC had reported nine instances when pregnant women were infected with Zika in February. They were included in the 234 - at least one baby of those first nine was born with microcephaly, a defect linked to Zika that causes abnormally small heads and brain damage in newborns.

“Microcephalic babies are beginning to be born,” Dr Jamieson added. “The disease seems to be very similar no matter where it is.”

The report included US territories, such as Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, which had 189 cases of Zika tied to pregnancies.

One “disturbing” aspect of the cases in the report, Dr Jamieson said, was that the women who gave birth to the microcephalic babies displayed no symptoms of Zika - a commonality of 80 per cent of people who have the virus.