At least 33 U.S. troops have contracted Zika
Source: Miami Herald
At least 33 U.S. troops have contracted Zika
August 3, 2016 6:42 PM
By Carol Rosenberg
[email protected]
Miami —
At least 33 U.S. troops, including a pregnant woman, have tested positive for the Zika virus, U.S. military spokesmen said Wednesday. Ten of those troops are men who answer to the Southern Command, the Pentagon subsidiary with oversight of troops in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Southcom spokesman Jose Ruiz said those 10 got infected in five locations — Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Martinique. They serve in all five branches that answer to Southcom, he added, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Marines.
The 10 “are all asymptomatic now,” said Ruiz, meaning they’re not currently sick. All were tested between February and July to make the list of confirmed cases. In addition, a woman relative of a U.S. service member working for Southcom got the infection in one of those five countries, he said. She is not pregnant and is asymptomatic, too, he said.
Southcom has liaison troops in four of the five nations. They generally work out of U.S. embassies on cooperation agreements such as military exercises or providing humanitarian relief. In the instance of Martinique, Ruiz said, a Coast Guard Cutter docked there as part of its anti-trafficking work with Southcom’s Joint Interagency Task Force and someone got sick.
Read more: http://www.thestate.com/news/nation-world/national/article93593527.html#storylink=cpy
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