The World Health Organization on Tuesday officially advised pregnant women to avoid areas where the Zika virus is spreading — currently in 31 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean. “The onus is on countries to report where they are having outbreaks,” said Dr. David L. Heymann, chairman of the WHO’s Zika emergency committee. “Then it’s up to the pregnant women to decide whether they want to travel there.”
Dr. Margaret Chan, the agency’s director general, also announced that sexual transmission was “more common than previously assumed,” warning pregnant women and their partners who have been in Zika-afflicted areas to practice abstinence or safe sex to avoid transmitting the virus. While this is the first time the committee has issued a travel warning for women, they did not ask women in areas where Zika is circulating to delay their pregnancies as some countries have done. Nevertheless, Dr. Chan did say that women who choose to do so should be given access to contraception.
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