Doctors to know in two weeks whether husband of Zika-positive Muscovite contracts infection
MOSCOW. Feb 18 (Interfax) - The woman from Moscow who has become the first Zika case in Russia could have theoretically passed the infection to her husband, Yevdokimov University Prof. Nikolai Malyshev has said.
"There was a risk of contamination, but we should wait for another two weeks," Malyshev said at a press conference on Thursday.
Infectious disease agents are rather picky: "It happens that they do not like something and refuse to propagate," he said.
"There is [a] 100% [chance] for rubeola: the virus is passed whenever there is contact," Malyshev said. But there are a large number of viruses "in which [infection] is selective: some will be infected and some will not," he said.
Tropical diseases, including the Zika virus, are passed by means of tropical insect bites, blood transfusion and sexual contact, Malyshev said.
Moscow's chief infectious disease physician Andrei Devyatkin told reporters on Monday that the country had had its first Zika case. The infection was found in a woman from Moscow, who had been on vacation to the Dominican Republic.
She developed symptoms - high fever and rash on the skin - upon arrival and was taken to an infectious disease hospital.