Months after the Zika virus was declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organization, a Zika-related death has occurred in the continental United States.
The distinction between a Zika-related death and someone actually dying from Zika is important, however. The unidentified elderly woman from Utah had underlying health issues and had contracted the virus when she traveled to a region with a Zika outbreak, according to health officials. As such, while she did test positive for Zika virus - even displaying symptoms such as rash, fever and conjunctivitis - it's unclear if or how the virus contributed to her death.
Salt Lake County Health Department Executive Director Gary Edwards said that officials became aware of the case as they were looking at death certificates for review. And while laboratory testing in Utah for the virus came up positive, they only received the results after the individual had died.
Where she traveled, what health condition she had, or any relevant factors won't be released because of health privacy laws, according to health officials.
This may be the first death to occur in the continental United States, but it isn't the first to occur in a U.S. territory. Back in April, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the first U.S. death from Zika was a patient in Puerto Rico. The victim was a man in his 70s who died from internal bleeding after developing severe thrombocytopenia because of the infection. The autoimmune bleeding disorder is characterized by abnormally low levels platelets that help blood clot.
Zika is spread primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquito. And, fortunately for anyone in the Salt Lake area who has now become concerned because of this death, neither of those species are present in the county.
The majority of people who are infected exhibit no symptoms, and those who do only exhibit them for about a week at most. However, in rare cases it has been linked to microcephaly, a congenital birth defect that produces an abnormal smallness of the head and is associated with improper brain development.
To date, there have been no reports of the virus being locally transmitted in the continental United States. However, the CDC has recorded a total of 1,132 reported cases of travel-associated Zika in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. With that in mind, officials in the federal, state and local governments are preparing for the worst-case scenario of the virus being spread locally.
