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Francisco Rodriguez
Detroit Tigers ace reliever Francisco Rodriguez, a native of Venezuela, tells ESPN that he had the Zika virus during the off-season.
Rodriguez, who spends his offseason in Caracas, Venezuela, said it initially started with cold-like symptoms, but it turned out to be much worse, according to a report by Katie Strang of ESPN.com.
"It wasn't a cold, trust me," Rodriguez told ESPN. "It wasn't a cold. A cold, you have a sneeze, have a headache, take a couple Tylenol and you're done. You don't have a cold for two weeks, you don't have a bodyache for two weeks, you don't have headaches, throwing up, weaknesses for two weeks."
Although Rodriguez, 34, was infected with the virus for only two weeks, ESPN reports, he said it took two months before he ultimately felt like himself again. It even affected him when he got to spring training but he was not considered contagious.
The Center for Disease Control describes the illness:
Zika virus disease is caused by the Zika virus, which is spread to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito. The most common symptoms of Zika are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (red eyes).
The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting for several days to a week after being bitten by an infected mosquito. People usually don’t get sick enough to go to the hospital, and they very rarely die of Zika. For this reason, many people might not realize they have been infected. However, Zika virus infection during pregnancy can cause a serious birth defect called microcephaly, as well as other severe fetal brain defects.
Once a person has been infected, he or she is likely to be protected from future infections.