Should women avoid pregnancy due to Zika virus? Health officials divided on the question

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed on Wednesday that the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which usually causes mild health issues in adults, can cause severe brain damage in infants. This led to a continuation of the controversy among health officials. as to whether women should avoid pregnancy due to the virus Some, such as the CDC, say women  in areas affected by Zika should use contraception, while others, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), disagree with blanket advice, calling avoiding pregnancy a decision that each woman needs to make on their own.

Not all women who become pregnant, even in areas heavily affected by the Zika virus, contract the disease, and, even in those areas, most babies are born healthy. However, some infectious disease experts argue that the only certain way of avoiding the births of deformed babies is to avoid conception completely. The question is becoming particularly relevant to American women as the Zika virus begins entering the U.S.

Advocates of delaying pregnancy during the Zika outbreak give several reasons, the first being that it is difficult, if not impossible, to protect a pregnant woman against mosquitoes 24 hours a day for nine months. Zika outbreaks, although tending to be brief, also are typically intense. In 2013 the virus infected 66 percent of the population of French Polynesia before disappearing 7 months later.

There is no vaccine expected to be ready to fight Zika for at least 2 years. Women who recover from Zika are permanently immune, so some experts argue that avoiding pregnancy for a time spares them the risk of a child being born with severe birth defects.

Dr. Denise J. Jamieson, a medical officer in the division of reproductive health at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, says that during the last American rubella epidemic, which caused 20,000 babies to either die or be severely handicapped, she would have advised women not to become pregnant due to the dangers. She does not endorse the same advice this time. She says, while rubella was unavoidable before a vaccine became available, mosquito bites that might transmit Zika can be avoided by “highly motivated women.”

While federal health officials continue to disagree, local agencies also offer a variety of advice. The U.S. Virgin Islands new health secretary, Michelle S. Davis, said she has not advocated a pregnancy delay. However, in Puerto Rico the CDC has given different advice, saying thousands of pregnant women could be affected by late summer. Dr. Ana Rius, Puerto Rico’s health secretary, advises women to avoid pregnancy while speaking in public interviews. Rius was accused of being an alarmist, and the Roman Catholic archbishop on the island criticized her plan to have public clinics distribute condoms.