Doctors Asked To Watch For Zika Virus

ST. PAUL (AP) - Minnesota health officials are asking doctors to watch for signs of a mosquito-borne virus in sick people who have recently returned from the Caribbean, Mexico and parts of Central and South America.

Federal health officials recently urged pregnant women to consider postponing travel to any region where the Zika virus is circulating. It has spread across more than a dozen countries since it was first documented last May. The illness causes fever, rash and joint pain. It has also been linked to a rare condition that causes brain damage and abnormally small heads in newborns.

Epidemiologist Dave Neitzel says the state has had only one documented case of the virus and that was back in 2014. The Zika virus is spread when a mosquito bites an infected person and then bites someone else. It's not transmitted from person to person.