(Reuters) — A student at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has contracted the Zika virus, school officials said on Monday (February 1).
“We are aware of this [and] we are monitoring it,” Communications Director Suzanne Seurattan told reporters, adding that, “our conversations with our own health and wellness team, as well as the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), show that there is no health risk here on campus or in the community.”
On Saturday (January 30), college officials sent out a campus-wide alert announcing that a student had contracted the Zika virus while traveling in Central America over winter break.
They have not released any other details about the case, only that the student is expected to recover and was not exhibiting any symptoms of the virus, local media reported.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the mosquito-borne Zika virus to be an international public health emergency due to its link to thousands of suspected cases of birth defects in Brazil.
The WHO said last week that the virus, carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, was “spreading explosively” and could infect as many as 4 million people in the Americas.
Brazil has reported some 3,700 suspected cases of microcephaly, in which infants are born with smaller-than-usual brains. The Health Ministry has linked the condition to Zika, although the connection is not yet definitive.
The Pan American Health Organization says that Zika has now spread in 24 nations and territories in the Americas. In addition, the Zika virus infection was also reported late last year in Cape Verde.
It has raised questions worldwide about whether pregnant women should avoid infected countries.