Video: What You Need to Know About the Zika Virus

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COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) — Zika, it’s a word scaring expectant mothers around the world.

The virus, contracted by infected mosquitoes is spreading “explosively” says the World Health Organization.

Symptoms of the virus are similar to the flu, and will pass within weeks in most people, but the risks are much bigger for unborn babies.

Natoya Sanders is expecting her first child, but that joy switched to worry as the Zika Virus headlines hit the wire.

She and her husband were planning to go to Jamaica, but Sanders was tipped off about the dangers from a friend at the CDC, she told her to talk to her doctor.

Her doctor had some strong advice.

“I really hate it, but I really would advise you not to go,” Sanders says.

So they canceled there trip for now…

“Looking at the birth defects, it’s juts really not worth the risk,” says Sanders.

Those risks are pretty big for babies born infected.

” The main one being microcephaly, where the baby’s head is exceptionally small. There’s less brain development, so you’re looking at mental retardation,” says OBGYN,Dr.Pamela Lacy.

She says we don’t have to worry about the virus spread by infected mosquitoes, as long as we stay in the U.S.

“We don’t. So, the women in the United States, are women that have traveled, to those areas,countries that have the Zika Virus,” says Dr. Lacy.

Those areas include Mexico and South America ,doctors recommend pregnant women do not travel to those areas, and Dr. Lacy says she does not expect the mosquitoes to make there way to the U.S.

Dr. Lacy says if you are infected now, once your body fights off the infection, you can get pregnant with no side effects from the virus.

The virus does not pas from person to person.