Biosecurity

Zika Might Spread in Sweat and Tears, Doctors Warn

The Zika virus may spread in sweat and tears in some cases, doctors cautioned Thursday.

The case of a Utah man who infected his adult son before he died leaves no other alternatives, the team at the University of Utah School of Medicine said.

And — more bad news — the 73-year-old patient who died really was not very sick before he caught Zika, which suggests that the virus can occasionally kill people who are not frail and ill.

Dr. Sankar Swaminathan and colleagues describe the case in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The patient, who died in July, was thefirst in the 50 U.S. states to be killed by Zika. He'd been treated for prostate cancer but wasn't especially ill from that, the team wrote in their report.