The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says in a new study in American Samoa and the other territories, that the risk for Zika-related birth defects falls in each trimester.
KHJ News Washington D.C. correspondent Matt Kaye reports…
The CDC study shows that during the first trimester, women in the US territories with confirmed Zika infection had a baby or fetus with Zika-related birth defects 8-percent of the time, or about one in 12.
That frequency dropped to 5-percent in the second trimester and 4-percent in the third trimester. The 9-month average was just over 5-and-a-half percent.
The analysis is based on information from more than 25-hundred women who completed their pregnancies last April in American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the FSM and the Marshall Islands.
Puerto Rico has been hardest hit in the entire US by Zika, but American Samoa last year reported more than 200-Zika cases, and at one point, declared a Zika epidemic.
The CDC says the latest data are more certain than an earlier study that showed similar results, since the new study sampled a larger population.
Of the 25-hundred-49 pregnancies reviewed, 122 women had babies or fetuses with birth defects, including microcephaly, the most high-profile abnormality linked to Zika.
The study did not provide a territory-by-territory breakdown…but the CDC stresses Zika infection during any trimester can lead to severe birth defects and urges women to take precautions.
The virus is spread mainly by mosquitoes and sex.
