Zika Case in Texas Sparks Questions About Sex and Mosquito Germs

Colombia's Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria explains the symptoms of Zika during an event to launch a nationwide prevention campaign against the virus in Ibague, Colombia, on Jan. 26, 2016. Gaviria said the mosquito-borne Zika virus has already infected more than 16,000 people in Colombia and could hit more than half a million throughout the country. AP Photo/Fernando Vergara

NEW YORK—A sexually transmitted case of Zika in Texas has scientists scrambling to understand how much of a risk infection through sex is for the usually mosquito-spread illness.

Experts still stress that mosquitoes are the main culprit in the Zika epidemic menacing Latin America and looming over the United States.

“Mosquitoes would be the great river of transmission, while sexual transmission is going to be akin to a mountain stream,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University.

Mosquitoes would be the great river of transmission, while sexual transmission is going to be akin to a mountain stream.

— Dr. William Schaffner, infectious disease expert, Vanderbilt University