Airlines offered refunds to pregnant mothers afraid to travel to countries where Zika is present, while Costa Rica announced measures designed to keep the virus from getting a foothold in the country.
The first Zika patient in Costa Rica apparently contracted the virus while visiting Colombia. Health Ministry officials fumigated a 100-meter square area around the man's bedroom and interviewed neighbors, none of whom had Zika symptoms.
Don't get pregnant for the next two years. That is the warning El Salvador's government has issued women as Zika, a tropical virus blamed for causing severe birth defects, sweeps Latin America and the Caribbean. But a spate of such recommendations from health officials in several countries has drawn derision in a region where activists say women have little control over their bodies in the first place.
Some Latin American countries are warning women to avoid getting pregnant, after thousands of cases of birth defects linked to the disease in recent months.
The Pan American Health Organization issued an epidemiological alert on the potential spread on the continent of the mosquito-borne viral disease Zika, which is similar to dengue and Chikungunya, but with milder symptoms.
