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Living With Zika: One Mother's Story

Published June 27, 2017 at 1:52 PM EDT
Maria Rios, 20, holds her daughter Aryanna Guadalupe Sanchez-Rios, who was born with microcephaly, on May 3, 2017. Maria, a U.S. citizen, was infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus while she was living with her husband in Colima, Mexico, last year. (Heidi de Marco/KHN)
Maria Rios, 20, holds her daughter Aryanna Guadalupe Sanchez-Rios, who was born with microcephaly, on May 3, 2017. Maria, a U.S. citizen, was infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus while she was living with her husband in Colima, Mexico, last year. (Heidi de Marco/KHN)

Summer is here and with the heat comes the threat of mosquitoes and the diseases they can spread, like the Zika virus. There are currently 80 infants in the mainland U.S. with birth defects caused by Zika, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. health system is at the very beginning of learning how to care for those babies.

Heidi de Marco ( @heidi_demarco) from our partners at Kaiser Health News shares the story of one family in the Seattle area.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.