Zika Virus Expected to Spread in Puerto Rico

Leilani Dominicci has all the typical worries of pregnant women plus a new one spreading across Puerto Rico: the fear she will become infected with the Zika virus and put her baby at risk.

Her unease has escalated so much that the 38-year-old attorney barely leaves her home in the capital of San Juan because of warnings the island faces an onslaught of the mosquito-borne illness.

As the virus sweeps through the hemisphere, Puerto Rico has become America's own front line in the battle against it — home to 3.5 million U.S. citizens and with a tropical landscape that is an ideal breeding ground for the mosquito that spreads Zika, as well as the dengue and chikungunya already common here.

Officials have barred local blood donations, ramped up efforts to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito and are trying to monitor every pregnant woman on the island due to fears Zika might cause birth defects. The voluntary registry by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extends to all Zika-infected women and their babies throughout the United States.

The Puerto Rican governor, meanwhile, has declared a public health emergency, and the CDC, which earlier urged pregnant women to reconsider visits to Puerto Rico, has asked Congress for $250 million in emergency aid to battle Zika here. The CDC has also sent nearly 40 health workers to help, and is using the island as a test bed for Zika studies.

"For the U.S., it really is the territory that is going to have the most infections," said Steve Waterman, head of the CDC's dengue branch in Puerto Rico. "It has the best medical and public health infrastructure to try and answer some of these questions at the same time that we're trying to control the disease."

Among the CDC's main goals is to test every pregnant woman in Puerto Rico for Zika and prevent people like Dominicci from contracting the virus. The CDC is urging people to take preventive measures, a call that Dominicci and her husband heeded after the first Zika case was reported in December.

"We have locked ourselves up at home," said Dominicci, who is nearly 37 weeks pregnant. "It's a constant concern, especially for women like us who are so far along because our options are limited. Ending a pregnancy at this stage is not even legal."

Zika causes headaches, fever and a rash, though most people with the virus never show symptoms. CDC researchers in Brazil and Puerto Rico are trying to determine whether the virus can cause microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with abnormally small heads, and a rare paralyzing condition, Guillain-Barre, which can be fatal.