HOUSTON – A third case of Zika virus has been confirmed for the Houston area, according to Houston Health Department officials. It is the second confirmed case in the city of Houston.
A man traveled to Honduras in December and tested positive for the virus. The man was between 35 and 39 years old. His condition is not known.
"The only risk factor we have right now for Zika is foreign travel to where it is an epidemic,” said Kathy Barton, the spokesperson for the Houston Health Department. “For most of us, that is Central and South America. We don't have any local transmission going on here. Although at some point we could. But it's not happening yet.”
KPRC 2 first told you back on Jan. 11 about a case of the virus in Harris County. In that case, a local traveler who recently returned from Latin America contracted the virus.
The city said Thursday that a woman, between the ages of 55 and 60 years old, is recovering from the Zika virus.
The head of the World Health Organization said Thursday that the Zika virus "is now spreading explosively."
"The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty," WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan told her organization's executive board members. "We need to get some answers, quickly."
The mosquito-borne disease is now in "23 countries and territories in the region," according to Chan. While it's been around in some form for decades, alarms have been raised only recently about Zika's suspected connection with "birth malformations and neurological symptoms."
#breaking @kprc2 Houston Health Dept says it has second case of Zika virus. Man, 35-39, visited Honduras in Dec.
— Ryan Korsgard (@KPRC2Ryan) January 29, 2016
Officials are discouraging travel to 22 infected areas, including Puerto Rico, for pregnant women and women off birth control, a warning which may last a couple years.
"This particular virus is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito. So the mosquito bites an infected person and goes to its next meal and infects that person. We don't have active transmission going on here in Houston though. All the cases we have seen have been imported from Central and South America.” Barton added.
Baylor College of Medicine Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine, Dr. Peter Hotez said we are at a disadvantage because of the mosquitoes in Houston.
"It's one of the only places in the U.S. that has both kinds of mosquitoes that can transmit Zika virus and it's another reason why I think Houston and the Gulf Coast is uniquely vulnerable when talking about Zika coming into the country," Hotez said.
He said by the end of February, he thinks most Caribbean countries are going to be affected.
Harris County Health and Environmental Services said they're not on alert yet.
During the colder months, they're not spraying and say they haven't seen many mosquitoes with any kind of disease, but discourage people from keeping stagnant water around homes.
Hotez said it poses a bigger threat to areas in poverty.
"Why is that? Well, I think it's probably because when you live in poor quality housing, you'll see windows without screens on them or a lot of holes in the screens, they won't have air conditioning or they'll have box like air conditioning that the mosquitoes can get in and around," Hotez said.
Texas Children's Hospital said they are monitoring patients even if they don't show symptoms.
Symptoms can include: fever, headache, rash and joint pain. 80 percent of people feel no symptoms. It's transmitted when a mosquito bites an infected person and the mosquito carries it to another person. It is not transmitted from person to person.