How prevalent is Zika?

[Optaka]

My wife and I will be traveling to Thailand later this year and are trying to determine how worried we should be about the possibility of zika while we are there.  I know the United States CDC says that it is a concern there but I am wondering how concerned people in Thailand are about it?  Is there treatment/prevention that most people use there?  Any advice or links to better information would be greatly appreciated.

[Bang Bang]

Dengue seems to the biggest worry from mosquitoes here. Never heard anyone fret about zika. Heck, I read your post and had to google to see that there have indeed been zika cases in Thailand.

 

I would suspect the risk is tiny but let's see what Sheryl says.

[uhuh]

https://www.iamat.org/country/thailand/risk/zika-virus

This is American-style overcautious (it is actually from Canada).

The complete opposite is "how concerned people in Thailand are". If you mean Thai people: zero, zilch, nada.

Just as the poster before (who is probably not Thai ????).  

 

So here you have 2 extreme positions and can take your pick. 

 

The CDC just says "women who are pregnant should not travel to Thailand". I think this is a good advice. 

(they go a bit more into details https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/zika-travel-information)

 

There is no treatment. 

Prevention: don't get bitten by mosquitoes, as described on every travel medicine site. Good against Dengue, too.

(Zika is rare but potentially awful for pregnant women,  Dengue is very common)

 

Edited April 28, 2019 by uhuh

[uhuh]

I just read the thread title was "how prevalent is zika?"

 

The recent study in the Lancet found 368 cases in 2 years, all over the country,  but they certainly didn't find all cases,  most cases are probably too mild to end up in the medical system. 

By comparison, there are about 50000 - 100000 cases of Dengue every year in Thailand.

 

[Optaka]

On 4/28/2019 at 12:51 PM, uhuh said:

I just read the thread title was "how prevalent is zika?"

 

The recent study in the Lancet found 368 cases in 2 years, all over the country,  but they certainly didn't find all cases,  most cases are probably too mild to end up in the medical system. 

By comparison, there are about 50000 - 100000 cases of Dengue every year in Thailand.

 

I suppose the real title should be "how concerned should we be about zika?"    We were planning on starting to try to get pregnant while on our trip to Southeast Asia until someone pointed out that Zika has been found in that area.  Now we are considering going somewhere else vs still going to SE Asia.   Just trying to get an idea of how concerned we really should be.

Edited April 30, 2019 by Optaka

[uhuh]

Typical recommendations in rich countries are: pregnant women should avoid unnecessary travel to countries with Zika (see the CDC recommendation above). If planning to get pregnant,  contraception should be continued until 2 months after the trip. 

I personally think these are good recommendations. 

Unfortunately,  it pretty much confines your travel to cold places. But Iceland or Canada can be very nice ????

 

Of course,  if everybody in the world would follow these recommendations,  pregnant women could not travel to most of the tropics anymore (a bit ridiculous), and two thirds of the world population could not get pregnant anymore (India, China, Indonesia, Brazil have Zika).

 

The number of pregnancy complications from Zika in Thailand seem to run in single digits. 

But I wouldn't want to run this admittedly very small risk of a disastrous outcome. You can always travel to Thailand at another time. 

 

 

[Sheryl]

+1 to the above.

No reason to be concerned unless pregnant but if pregnant or planning to conceive, while the risk is small it exists and unless there is some compelling reason to come to Thailand it is preferrable to wait.

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