Later, the advice was updated to caution pregnant women to avoid these areas entirely if possible and, if travel is unavoidable, to protect themselves from mosquito bites. Male partners of pregnant women and couples contemplating pregnancy who must travel to areas where Zika is active are advised to use condoms or abstain from sex. The agency also suggested that women thinking about becoming pregnant should consult with their physicians before traveling.In September 2016, the CDC travel advisories included:
Cape Verde
Many parts of the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, The Bahamas, Barbados, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Saba, Saint Saint Barthélemy, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, Trinidad and Tobago, and the U.S. Virgin Islands
Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama
Mexico
Most of South America: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela
Several Pacific Islands: American Samoa, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, and Tonga
In Asia: Singapore, Malaysia, BruneiIn December 2020, no active Zika outbreaks were reported by the CDC. WHO response
Both the regional Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) as well as the WHO have issued statements of concern about the widespread public health impact of the Zika virus and its links to GBS and microcephaly.
One other study published in March 2016 by Mlakar and colleagues analyzed autopsy tissues from a fetus with microcephaly that was probably related to Zika virus; researchers found ZIKV in the brain tissue and suggested that the brain injuries were probably associated with the virus, which also shed a light on the vertical transmission theory. Also in March 2016, first solid evidence was reported on how the virus affects the development of the brain, indicating that it appears to preferentially kill developing brain cells.The first cases of birth defects linked to Zika in Colombia and in Panama were reported in March 2016. In the same month, researchers published a prospective cohort study that found profound impacts in 29 percent of infants of mothers infected with Zika, some of whom were infected late in pregnancy. This study did not suffer from some of the difficulties of studying Zika: the study followed women who presented to a Rio de Janeiro clinic with fever and rash within the last five days. The women were then tested for Zika using PCR, then the progress of the pregnancies were followed using ultrasound. Guillain–Barré syndrome
A high rate of the autoimmune disease Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS), noted in the French Polynesia outbreak, has also been found in the outbreak that began in Brazil.