The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that more than 270 pregnant women in the United States have tested positive for the Zika virus.
The announcement today is the first time that the agency has publicly released the number of pregnant women affected by Zika in the United States.
The women worry about whether their babies will be born with birth defects, federal health officials announced.
So far, less than a dozen of these women have had an “adverse event,” such as a miscarriage or the birth of a baby with a defect, CDC officials said.
“These new numbers reflect a broader group of pregnant women — pregnant women who have any laboratory evidence of possible Zika virus infection, and whether or not they recalled symptoms — compared with numbers previously reported,” the CDC said in a statement.
The numbers include women who have already given birth, those who have miscarried and those who may have had abortions because of birth defects.
These visualizations further breakdown the incidences.