UPDATE: The Southern Nevada Health District is reporting the second confirmed case of Zika virus in a Clark County resident. The patient is a woman who recently traveled to Brazil.
“The Health District continues to test people in keeping with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We do expect that we will report more positive cases in the future. However, it is important for the public to continue to understand that to date these cases have all been acquired outside of the United States,” said Dr. Joe Iser, Chief Health Officer for the Southern Nevada Health District.
Iser says Zika is transmitted by a mosquito foreign to Southern Nevada. Until that mosquito is found here, he says there's virtually nothing for people to worry about.
The virus can also spread through sexual contact.
ORIGINAL STORY:
The Southern Nevada Health District has received confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that a Clark County resident has tested positive for the Zika virus.
The patient is an adult male who recently traveled to Guatemala.
Zika virus is spread primarily though the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito. The most common symptoms of Zika virus disease are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (red eyes).
Additional symptoms can include muscle pain and headache. The virus is usually mild, and four out of five people infected will not know they have the disease. Patients usually don’t require hospitalization, and Zika rarely results in death.
Currently, there is no vaccine to prevent Zika virus disease, and no specific treatment for the infection.
In addition to mosquito bites, Zika can be passed from a mother to her baby during pregnancy, and spread during sex from a man to his partners. Spread of the virus through blood transfusion has also been reported and is being investigated.
13 Action News spoke with a local doctor about what the first case means. Dr. Eileen Shi says it is possible there will be more cases now. One main reason for this is because Las Vegas is a travel hub and there are so many out-of-towners partying on the strip.
"Las Vegas is a very touristy town with a lot of people traveling from different countries and different places," said Dr. Eileen Shi. "So with us being such an international country, we should be aware that there are travelers, even locals who can travel to these place."
For more information, click here.
