The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that a baby in Oahu, Hawaii was born with microcephaly, per CNN. It is the first reported case of the birth defect linked with the Zika virus in the country since the October 2015 outbreak in Brazil.

The Hawaiian Health Department noted that the baby's mother resided in Brazil back in May 2015 and likely was infected before moving to Oahu. The department also assured that both the mother and baby are not contagious and the threat of an outbreak in the islands is unlikely.

The case was reported on Saturday, a day after the CDC issued a travel alert to 14 countries and territories in the Caribbean, Central and South America linked with the Zika virus. People, especially pregnant women are warned to get extra cautious when traveling to Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Roco, Suriname and Venezuela.

According to FOX News, the virus is spreading in most Latin American countries with Brazil having the most cases of microcephaly since October 2015. The Brazilian Health Ministry reported more than 3,500 cases of the rare birth defect where newborn babies fail to develop brains properly resulting to an unusually small head.

The number of cases is alarming considering there were less than 150 cases reported in 2014 with many pregnant women in the country fleeing to the U.S. and Europe to avoid the virus. The Brazilian government is eradicating mosquito habitats but announced that a research for developing a vaccine against the Zika virus is already funded.

"Today there is only one way to fight the Zika virus, which is to destroy the mosquito's breeding grounds. The final victory against the virus will only come when we develop a vaccine against that disease," Brazil's Health Minister Marcelo Castro said.

In a report by Voice of America, the state of Pernambuco in Brazil has the most number of reported cases with more than 1,000 with three confirmed deaths. The symptoms of the Zika virus on adults include fever, joint pain and skin rash spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

The virus was discovered in 1947 by scientists in the African nation of Uganda while studying monkeys. The first reported cases in humans were first recorded in Nigeria back in the 1950s and other cases were very rare. However, the Pacific island of Micronesia suffered a Zika virus outbreak in 2007 with some additional cases in other islands like the Cook Islands, Easter Island, New Caledonia and Polynesia.

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