Emerging Infectious Diseases
DQ9 Community Nursing APA Format
Chapter 15: Emerging Infectious Diseases
A neighbor, who is 3 months pregnant, asks to talk to you because she has felt tired for the last 2 days, has a headache, a rash, and does not feel like eating. You take her vital signs and find that she has a low-grade fever. She has recently traveled to an area where there is risk for Zika virus disease.
To what could your neighbor have been exposed, and how could the exposure have occurred?
What advice would you give your neighbor?
Answer preview
The woman could have been exposed to the Zika virus. Infected mosquitoes transmit the Zika virus. When an infected mosquito bites a person, they infected them with the virus. The woman could have been bitten by an infected mosquito when she traveled to the area infested by the infected mosquitos. Besides, the symptoms that the woman is exhibiting are those of people infected with Zika. Some of the woman’s symptoms are headache, lack of appetite, rash, and low-grade fever. According to WHO (2020), the disease symptoms are fever, headache, rash, feelings of weakness, and malaise. The woman satisfies these symptoms, and hence she has high chances of having the Zika virus.
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