The Zika virus will likely come to the U.S. and health agencies should prepare for local transmission of the mosquito-borne disease, experts said Sunday.
According to Newsweek, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, as well as other public health officials from the National Institutes of Health, believes that dozens of Americans will eventually be infected with the Zika virus.
Fauci added, though, that he did not believe an outbreak in the United States would be widespread.
"It is likely we will have what is called a local outbreak," Fauci told "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace,"
according to Reuters. "It would not be surprising at all - if not likely - that we're going to see a bit of that. We're talking about scores of cases, dozens of cases, at most."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Zika virus is spread to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito. The Zika virus infection during pregnancy can cause a serious birth defect called microcephaly, as well as other severe fetal brain defects, noted the CDC.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito can be found in about 30 states.
There have been 350 cases of people being infected with the Zika virus overseas and then returning to the United States, but no one has been infected within U.S. borders.
Zika can also be spread through sexual contact and can give adults the paralyzing Guillain-Barre syndrome.
"There are only individual case reports of significant neurological damage to people not just the fetuses but an adult that would get infected," Fauci said. "Things that they call meningoencephalitis, which is an inflammation of the brain and the covering around the brain, spinal cord damage due to what we call myelitis. So far they look unusual, but at least we've seen them and that's concerning."
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