According to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who conducted studies with monkeys, casual contact like sharing a fork or spoon is not enough to spread the Zika virus, according to an article on the Infection Control Today website.
Their findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.
Scientists believe that mosquito bites are the source of most Zika virus infections in people.The virus can also be spread by sexual intercourse, but much about Zika remained unknown — including whether the saliva of an infected person posed a danger.
"If passing the virus by casual contact were easy, I think we would see a lot more of what we would call secondary transmission in a place like the United States," Tom Friedrich, a virology professor at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, said in the article.
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