Addressing the Continued Risk of Zika: Protection, Prevention and Communcation

With Zika now a “foreseeable” risk under Duty of Care, organizations are realizing their potential liability and are proactively mitigating their employees’ exposure to the threat by educating and protecting their employees traveling to – or living in – Zika endemic regions.

Although the Zika virus is not necessarily new (first recorded case in 1952), it has been prevalent in headlines coming out of Brazil since early 2015. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that cases of the Zika virus have been reported in 48 countries, including the United States. As of the middle of September, there are reportedly 10,295 cases of Zika throughout the U.S. and its territories. So far, 14 of these cases were locally acquired mosquito-borne cases, as most are caused by travelers going to Zika-endemic areas and contracting the virus while abroad. Officials fear this number could be much higher, since symptoms of the Zika virus are absent in more than 80-percent of the infected, and many people do not realize they acquired the disease. In the timespan of a couple short months, the total cases of Zika in the U.S. has increased exponentially as summer (and mosquito breeding) set in.