The Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency over the Zika virus in Puerto Rico on Friday, and U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said he expects fully one in four of Puerto Rico's 3.5 million people to be infected with the virus by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, new research from Italy finds that Zika, which can cause birth defects including microcephaly, can remain in an infected man's sperm for as long as six months, even with treatment, suggesting the risk of sexual transmission is greater than previously believed.
Puerto Rico's state of emergency was declared after some 1,914 new Zika cases were reported in the American territory in the past week alone, bringing the confirmed count of infected people on the island to 10,690. More than 1,000 of those cases involve pregnant women.
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