All pregnant women with Zika diagnosed at community hospitals must be referred to academic medical centers for prenatal care!
Most pregnant women with Zika will eventually wind up at academic medical centers for prenatal care and delivery by a perinatologist, with newborn care provided by a comprehensive team of pediatrician sub-specialists including neonatologists and pediatric neurologists. The earlier during the pregnancy the better!
Here’s why…..
Highlights from August’s Emergency Preparedness Coordinating Council
Kevin Chason, DO, of the Mount Sinai Health System, shared how his system uses the emergency management structure to coordinate preparedness and response to Zika virus. A multidisciplinary team co-led by representatives from the emergency management and infection control departments has been meeting regularly since May. Key focus areas are patient communication, provider guidance, tracking and monitoring of specimens, and staff safety.
http://gnyha.org/PressRoom/Publication/1e9f564d-eec3-4371-af75-31f0896b89e1/
Zika continues to infiltrate US, 20 babies born with Zika-related birth defects
Twenty babies in the U.S. have been born with Zika-related birth defects and 749 pregnant women have lab evidence of possible Zika infection as of Sept. 15, according to the CDC’s most recent update.
There are 3,358 people in the U.S. with the mosquito-born and sexually transmitted virus in the U.S. as of Sept. 21. Of those, 28 people were infected via sexual contact.
Additionally, the CDC reported 43 of the total cases were acquired from mosquitoes in Florida. However, the Florida Department of Health lists its number of locally acquired Zika cases at 92 as of Sept. 22.
Doctors Brace for Zika Babies
This month, the first group of babies in Puerto Rico known to have been exposed to the Zika virus in their first trimester are being born. Pediatricians do not know what to expect.
“This is not like any other outbreak or epidemic,” said Dr. Fernando Ysern, a pediatrician in Caguas, Puerto Rico, who is the president of the Puerto Rico chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In the pediatric field, Zika looms as a kind of developmental doomsday virus, attacking the vulnerability of early brain development, striking at the neurological basis of human potential. While Puerto Rico, a United States territory, will experience the first wave of children affected by Zika, the rest of the United States is bracing for the spread of the virus.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/well/family/doctors-brace-for-zika-babies.html