Amid growing concerns about the mosquito-borne Zika virus and associated birth defects, the government of El Salvador is asking its citizens to avoid pregnancies for the next two years.

Women in the Central American country should not get pregnant until 2018, health officials counseled, given that at least 5,000 cases of Zika have been documented in the nation of 6 million, The New York Times reported.

Eduardo Espinoza, El Salvador's vice minister of health, told the newspaper that the official advice was a "secondary" approach, stemming from "the fact that these mosquitoes exist and transmit this disease."

"We see ourselves obligated to make this recommendation to partners trying to get pregnant," Espinoza said.

Health Experts Question Approach

But the World Health Organization (WHO) said it would not recommend suspending pregnancies for two years, and health experts worried that the approach taken by El Salvador may be excessive.

"I can tell you that I have never read, heard or encountered a public request like that," David Bloom, a professor of economics and demography at the Harvard School of Public Health, told The New York Times.

The Zika virus has affected large areas of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the WHO has warned it will likely reach nearly all of North and South America, Time noted. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised pregnant women to avoid travel to places affected by the virus, according to the magazine.

CDC Urges Travelers to Take Precautions

The federal health agency listed as Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Saint Martin, Suriname, Samoa, Venezuela and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico as hazardous areas.

While there is no prevention or treatment for the disease, travelers should take into account that the Zika virus is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, CNN noted. They should therefore prevent mosquito bites by continuously using repellent and covering exposed skin, the news channel added.

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