The Florida Department of Health identified the first locally acquired Zika case in the U.S. in July, and this month, physicians from the University of Miami Health System and Miller School of Medicine published a case study about the woman who acquired Zika in Florida.
"The report may have implications for future Zika screening, diagnoses and linkage to care throughout the United States and abroad," according to the University of Miami.
Here are five things to know about the case study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
1. The 23-year-old woman was 23 weeks pregnant when she acquired Zika in July 2016.
2. She experienced three days of a low fever, a sore throat and a widespread rash when she presented at the hospital. Later, she also experienced muscle and joint pain.
3. Much of the report centers on the patient's rash. "Dermatologists and clinicians had an idea of what the Zika rash looked like, but it wasn't until the patient presented here that we were able to get an up-close and personal look and photograph the skin," said Lucy Chen, MD, a Jackson Health System dermatology resident and lead author of the case study. "Any doctor now has a visual sense of the rash to properly diagnose and refer patients to the appropriate specialists."
4. Zika virus lingered in the patient's body for six weeks, blood tests showed, which shows "an example of how the virus can circulate in the body of a pregnant woman for more than the typical one to two weeks," said Christine Curry, MD, PhD, who leads the care of Zika-infected pregnant women at University of Miami and Jackson Health Systems.
5. Tests on the patient's infant, who was born in October, show normal development, even though Zika infection in pregnant women has been tied to birth defects in their infants, such as microcephaly.