Anyone know of recent reports of Zika in Caribbean?

[Chrissi1981]

I'm wondering if anyone here has travelled to any of the Caribbean islands as of late and heard of any recent outbreaks. Everything I find is from the epidemic in 2016. So hard to make an informed decision. I may post this in all trimesters so if you see a repeat I'm sorry...

 

[ashlee23]

I don't know the answer I'm afraid but any travel agent should be able to find it for you. When we went to Barbados last year the advice was a definite no during pregnancy but we are going to Florida this year (which was on the not recommended to travel list) and the travel agent told us it has been reclassified as low risk due to no reported cases for a long time xx

 

[Chrissi1981]

I don't know the answer I'm afraid but any travel agent should be able to find it for you. When we went to Barbados last year the advice was a definite no during pregnancy but we are going to Florida this year (which was on the not recommended to travel list) and the travel agent told us it has been reclassified as low risk due to no reported cases for a long time xx

Yeah ... I've done a fair amount of research since and they are not certain that Zika was to blame. Given it's been around for many years and nothing of the same issue that came up in Brazil was noted anywhere else ... I'm sure it would have been. It's thought that it may have been a result of the Dtap (think that's what it's called) given to pregnant women as of October or November 2015. It was after then that the birth defects arose and of course Zika was found in the animistic fluid... so it could be that the combination of both had something to do with it.

No one is sure. But there are people I know and friends of friends who live in many places around the Caribbean that have had perfectly healthy babies during this period of time. From what I can understand they were protecting themselves. Ironically I was asked today if I would also have part of the vaccination that was administered in Brazil not long before the outbreak of the small head issue occurred... for prevention of whooping cough. Erm no thanks !

Lol yeah. I do think it got a wee bit out of hand. The world freaked out and I cannot find any recent news of the issue in the Caribbean specifically the DM ...

Have fun in Florida ! Xx