To be worried about going on holiday pregnant to somewhere with the Zika mosquitos but no Zika?

[Accoooooo]

Less AIBU, more AIB-overreacting.

I'm 23 weeks pregnant. I've been quite anxious for a number of reasons.

Due to go to Madeira in a couple of weeks. Didn't even think to check about Zika before I booked it, I've now checked and the WHO said in 2022 that Madeira has the Aedes mosquito that carries Zika and they expect cases there in the future. There haven't actually been any Zika cases reported there so far.

I ALWAYS get bitten if there are mosquitos around. I understand it's a low low risk, I would have to get bitten and the mosquito have Zika and then infect me and then the baby be affected which is quite a chain of things to happen.

But obviously there is a risk and I would never forgive myself if the baby was impacted just for a holiday.

Any wise words of advice? Would you go?

Zika is more dangerous in early pregnancy and those who are in the zones throughout pregnancy. I personally think the risk is low but do take preventative measures like safe bug spray

Then you won't drive to the airport, get on a plane, etc. Everything has a risk, you need to be able to evaluate it.

Go. The risk is minute of it even exists.

The advice you're getting from most people here is not informed, but more of a hair trigger response in seeing the word Zika.

As others have pointed out, the same mosquitos exist here and in France, so I'm guessing in most European countries where the disease that they can be a vector for does not exist. Also it's not mosquito season.

Then there are the UK government linked advice pages which don't have any mention of Zika risk for Madeira

The government travel health website is normally very over cautious. So if they don't mention a risk in Madeira, then it basically isn't there.

I went to St Lucia a couple of months ago, pregnant. But the last case of Zika they had there was 2017. We wore high strength repellent 24/7, washed body and hair in repellant stuff and used suncream with it in. I also covered up a lot. It would have cost us thousands to cancel so we took the risk based on a lot of reading and research on it. We haven’t had sex since, yet (it can be in sperm for 3 months) and we don’t seem to have had any effects. I wouldn’t do it again but that’s the decision we made this time.

NaTHNaC is the nurses' bible so if there's no mention of Zia for Madeira (there isn't) then you're fine.

Thank you - that is v helpful as I hadn't come across this website before and didn't know how official it was!

I think the risk is currently zero so I'd go

@Accoooooo I know this is an old thread but did you end up going on holiday? Just found out I'm pregnant and am travelling to Turkey in May which says no Zika cases reported but mosquitoes are present and have started panicking!

Yeah op, there was a chance that I'd be pregnant when we went on our honeymoon (I wasn't in the end but we had started trying just before the wedding as we were both mid 30s and didn't want to leave it too late) and I made sure we checked all the Zika outbreaks and where they were so as to avoid. If you always get bitten I'd say be careful and see if you can go somewhere it's not a risk.

I went. Got bitten once. I was vigilant with spray etc, not sitting outside at dusk.

Incognito is a great spray that seemed to work well.

I decided on balance as there wasn't an outbreak (just the mosquitos present) and that would make the chance of being bitten by one that was infected very small.

Zika mozzies are daytime not evening… just fyi!

@Accoooooo Thanks for replying! Assuming everything went well with your pregnancy and the bite wasn't anything serious?

As far as can all be seen at this point!