Zika Active in 56 Countries and States

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 4:25AM EST · Published Aug 21, 9:05AM EDT

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Zika Active in 56 Countries and States — © Thinkstock

The latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the Zika virus is actively being transmitted in 56 countries, including the United States. As of August 17, there have been 2,260 confirmed U.S. cases of the virus, but just 14 actively transmitted cases all of which occurred in two areas of Miami, Florida. Nearly 7,900 confirmed cases have been reported in Puerto Rico.

The Zika virus causes microcephaly, a birth defect that causes the baby’s head to be smaller than expected compared with other babies of the same sex and age. According to the CDC, Zika can also cause other problems among fetuses and infants infected with Zika virus before birth, such as defects of the eye, hearing deficits, and impaired growth. There have also been increased reports of Guillain-Barré syndrome, an uncommon sickness of the nervous system, in areas affected by Zika.

New research reported last Friday indicates that the Zika virus may also pose a wider threat than previously believed. Research on mice suggests that some adult brain cells may also be affected by the virus, including brain cells that replace lost or damaged neurons throughout adulthood and that are believed to be “critical to learning and memory.”

Here are the countries and states or provinces where the CDC has determined that the Zika virus is currently being actively transmitted:

Americas

Anguilla
Antigua
Argentina
Aruba
Barbados
Barbuda
Belize
Bolivia
Bonaire
Brazil
Cayman Islands
Colombia
Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico, US territory
Costa Rica
Cuba
Curacao
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
French Guiana
Grenada
Guadeloupe
Guatemala
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Jamaica
Martinique
Mexico
Nicaragua
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Saba
Saint Barthélemy
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Sint Eustatius
Sint Maarten
Suriname
Trinidad and Tobago
Turks and Caicos
U.S. Virgin Islands
Venezuela

Oceania/Pacific Islands

American Samoa
Fiji
Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia
Marshall Islands
New Caledonia
Papua New Guinea
Samoa
Tonga

Africa

Cape Verde

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.