A man in Britain who was infected with Zika while traveling to the Cook Islands showed evidence of the mosquito-borne virus in his semen for two months, health officials said Friday.
The finding raises new questions for health authorities as they scramble to learn more about Zika — linked to a surge in birth defects in Brazil — and the risk of transmission through sex.
The case involved a 68-year-old man who was infected with Zika in 2014 while traveling.
He complained of a fever, rash and lethargy upon return to Britain, where he was tested and the results came back positive for Zika.
Though Zika symptoms are often mild and resolve themselves in about a week, the virus was found during tests of semen taken 27 and 62 days after the man’s initial infection, said a report from Public Health England, published online in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal.
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