A pregnant Connecticut teen has tested positive for Zika, a mosquito-borne virus linked to devastating birth defects, the Daily News reports.
Sara Mujica, who visited her fiancé in Honduras in March, said she thought her symptoms — rashes, headaches and neck aches — were related to fish she had eaten. But test results last week showed the 17-year-old had Zika, which has become an epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“I was in a state of shock honestly,” Mujica said. “I didn’t really know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I just started getting teary eyed and almost crying. I was just trying to stay strong.”
Mujica said she learned she was pregnant while she was on the March trip to Honduras.
Around the time she took the pregnancy test, she started feeling ill. When she returned to Danbury, she decided to get tested for Zika. An outbreak of the virus has struck countries from Mexico to Paraguay — including Honduras — in recent months.
Zika can cause microcephaly, a severe birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and brain damage. Researchers don’t yet know the rate at which infected women have babies with birth defects.
