Zika and Pregnancy: My Professional and Personal Fight Re

Zika and Pregnancy: My Professional and Personal Fight

October 20, 2016

By: Anne Reid, Counselor to the Secretary, HHS

I vividly remember New Year's Eve 2015.  Puerto Rico's Department of Health announced its first case of local Zika transmission.  That day marked the arrival of Zika to the United States and the beginning of months of intense work with our HHS agencies and U.S. government (USG) partners on this public health challenge.
Leaders across HHS and the USG worked closely to take the necessary steps to prepare for and respond to Zika.  In early January, CDC researchers established a relationship between Zika infection during pregnancy and microcephaly, a serious birth defect, as well as other poor pregnancy outcomes. Soon after, we learned that Zika could also be sexually transmitted.
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