51 people, including 2 pregnant women, infected with Zika in Georgia

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — For the first time, public health leaders are reporting two pregnant women in Georgia are infected with Zika.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in DeKalb County is keeping a close eye on numbers of Zika cases across the country.

In Georgia, there are now 51 travel-related cases and two of those patients are pregnant. One of the cases was sexually transmitted.

“Our priority population at risk is pregnant women. We want to protect pregnant women above all else,” state epidemiologist Cheri Drenzek said.

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Drenzek says because of the risk of severe birth defects associated with Zika, those two Georgia women have been added to a national registry.

“As of this week, 479 individuals across the nation are being tracked,” she said. “Of (those), we actually have documented 21 adverse outcomes nationally, not here in Georgia. Some were live born infants with birth defects, some were pregnancy losses.”

Other Georgia health leaders say they are closely monitoring mosquitoes to try and prevent local transmissions. %

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“These types of mosquitoes feed on people and so what we'd been doing is watching those populations around positive cases and keeping the numbers down,” Chris Kumnick, with the Georgia Department of Public Health, said.

A spokeswoman for the DPH told Channel 2’s Lori Geary neither one of the pregnant women have delivered their babies yet.

One traveled to Honduras, the other to Jamaica, before getting diagnosed with the Zika virus.

Cox Media Group