The Zika program at Parkland Memorial Hospital is made of two components: educating pregnant women about Zika and screening them for the virus.
If they screen positive, they're brought to the new specialized Zika clinic.
Created in March, the Zika clinic is on the third floor of the hospital's WISH Clinic, the Women & Infants Specialty Health Clinic.
A Zika czar leads the medical team, which includes maternal and fetal specialists with training in infectious disease, who meet pregnant women suspected of carrying the virus once a week.
So far, of the 12,000 pregnant women who've been screened since March, 300 to 400 of them screened positive for Zika, meaning they've possibly been exposed to virus while in another country.
Of that number, only 14 pregnant women exhibited Zika symptoms.
Only one of those women tested postive for Zika and doctors say she delivered a healthy baby who showed no signs of the virus, such as birth defects like microcephaly.
"Our patients who we even suspect might have Zika are all assigned to this clinic. They're followed alot more closely than say a routine pregnancy with no concerns. We see them alot more often," says Dr. Joseph Chang, Associate Chief Medical Officer of Outpatient Ambulatory Services at Parkland Health & Hospital.
Chang says the hospital followed guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control to create its Zika procedures.
"It is a big challenge, especially when we are faced with so many other challenges, but mainly what we try to do is focus our efforts on our national agencies, like the Centers for Disease Control and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. They are generally very good about putting out the information that they know and then we like to model our program after theirs," said Chang.
Women who are registered in the Zika program may be seen as frequently as once a week.
Doctors will also perform multiple detailed, or targeted ultrasounds, in which they look for signs of microcephaly or abnormal growth in the fetus.
"All mothers who are suspected of having been exposed to Zika, much less have Zika already, are connected with pediatric services during the antenatal period, before their babies are born, and then those babies of any of the suspected cases will be followed immediately after birth by our pediatric specialists," said Chang.
The hospital is on track to deliver 12,000 babies this year and no baby has exhibited signs of the Zika virus.
However, the vital component to the program, according to administrators, is education.
During screening, pregnant women receive personalized information on how to prevent the spread of the virus and protect their unborn child.
"We see a huge population of Hispanic patients. This population tends to travel to see family members a little more often than maybe other populations do.
Unfortunately, right now, Zika is more endemic in those areas," said Chang.
"They also have economic challenges in terms of trying to constantly buy mosquito repellent to put on everyone in their family," he added.
"They’re really busy with extra jobs, distracted by alot of other socio-economic issues, so it’s really hard to remember to put that repellant on every two hours."
As the public hospital for Dallas County, Parkland officials say they're prepared for a possible increase in cases of microcephaly and other ZIka-related defects.
"We are ready. Don’t worry, there is a place for you to come," said Chang.
