Zika's alarming spread: More than a million infected with virus globally

JEK

JEK

Senior Insider
From the Washington Post. Pregnant women in any trimester are at risk

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this week a dozen cases of Zika virus had shown up in the United States and issued a new travel advisory for pregnant women, asking them to avoid 14 countries which are currently seeing high rates of infection.
So far, all of the known cases are of people who were traveling and likely bitten by mosquitos abroad rather than within the U.S. borders -- but infectious disease experts say the rapid spread of the tropical virus in the Americas may mean a larger outbreak here could be coming north at any time.
The virus, which had historically caused mild symptoms such as a bumpy rash and achy joints, has recently been linked to an alarming rise in microcephaly cases in Brazil in which babies are born with a congenital brain defect. In recent days, several countries have taken drastic measures to try to combat the virus with Brazil, Colombia, and [URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/jamaica-advises-women-to-delay-pregnancy-due-to-zika-virus/2016/01/18/03af4266-be0e-11e5-98c8-7fab78677d51_story.html"]Jamaica all calling on women to consider delaying becoming pregnant.


Full article at this link: http://wpo.st/5OY51
[/URL]


More on Zika posted on the island and herein: https://www.sbhonline.com/forums/threads/87418-Zika-virus?p=942862&viewfull=1#post942862
 
As stated above, this was discussed on the Forum a while back. Hopefully it will be transient- here today gone tomorrow!
 
Barbados, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, Guyana, Cape Verde and Samoa have all been added to the CDC list.
 
[h=1]Zika virus: WHO warns virus is to spread across Americas, spurring vaccine hunt[/h]Updated January 26, 2016 07:03:56
EXTERNAL LINK: Smartraveller zika advice tweet
PHOTO: The Zika virus is transmitted by Aedes species mosquitoes, which also spread dengue and chikungunya.(Muhammad Mahdi Karim/Wikimedia Commons)
RELATED STORY: Rio vows to protect Olympics from Zika virus
RELATED STORY: Women in Latin America urged to postpone pregnancies as Zika virus sparks panic
RELATED STORY: Baby born with brain damage in Hawaii had Zika infection

MAP: Brazil

The mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has been linked to brain damage in thousands of babies in Brazil, is likely to spread to all countries in the Americas except for Canada and Chile, the World Health Organization says, causing Australia to issue new travel advice.
[h=2]Key points[/h]
  • WHO warns Zika will spread throughout the Americas
  • There is no vaccine for Zika, evoking fears of another Ebola-like outbreak
  • This year's Rio Olympics are under threat


Zika has not yet been reported in the continental United States, although a woman who fell ill with the virus in Brazil later gave birth to a brain-damaged baby in Hawaii.
Brazil's Health Ministry said in November that Zika was linked to a foetal deformation known as microcephaly, in which infants are born with smaller-than-usual brains.
Brazil has reported 3,893 suspected cases of microcephaly, the WHO said last Friday, more than 30 times more than in any year since 2010 and equivalent to 1 to 2 per cent of all newborns in the state of Pernambuco, one of the worst-hit areas.
New advice issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Monday night listed 22 countries of concern, including Pacific neighbour Samoa.
The advice said Samoa was the only country in the region with an ongoing outbreak after previous incidences on Yap, in the Federated States of Micronesia, and French Polynesia.
The Zika outbreak comes hard on the heels of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, demonstrating once again how little-understood diseases can rapidly emerge as global threats.
"We've got no drugs and we've got no vaccines. It's a case of deja vu because that's exactly what we were saying with Ebola," Trudie Lang, a professor of global health at the University of Oxford, said on Monday.
"It's really important to develop a vaccine as quickly as possible."
The virus is not expected to be a problem in Canada and Chile due to the absence of the type of mosquitoes that carry the virus in those countries.
Large drug-makers' investments in tropical disease vaccines with uncertain commercial prospects have so far been patchy, prompting health experts to call for a new system of incentives following the Ebola experience.
"We need to have some kind of a plan that makes (companies) feel there is a sustainable solution and not just a one-shot deal, over and over again," said Francis Collins, director of the US National Institutes of Health, last week.
The Sao Paulo-based Butantan Institute is currently leading the research charge on Zika and said last week it planned to develop a vaccine "in record time", although its director warned this was still likely to take three to five years.
[h=2]Zika surge in Brazil a mystery[/h]PHOTO: A specialist fumigates the Nueva Esperanza graveyard in the outskirts of Lima. (AFP: Ernesto Benavides)
The virus was first found in a monkey in the Zika forest near Lake Victoria, Uganda, in 1947, and has historically occurred in parts of Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands.
But there is little scientific data on it and it is unclear why it might be causing microcephaly in Brazil.
[h=2]What is Zika virus?[/h]
  • Zika virus is spread through mosquito bites
  • Common symptoms include fever, rashes, joint pain and conjunctivitis
  • Outbreaks have occurred in Africa, South-East Asia, the Pacific and the Americas
  • There is no vaccine or medicine to treat the virus
Source: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

Laura Rodrigues of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said it was possible the disease could be evolving.
If the epidemic was still going on in August when Brazil is due to host the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, then pregnant women should either stay away or be obsessive about covering up against mosquito bites, she said.
The WHO advised pregnant women planning to travel to areas where Zika is circulating to consult a healthcare provider before travelling and on return.
The clinical symptoms of Zika are usually mild and often similar to dengue, a fever which is transmitted by the same Aedes aegypti mosquito, leading to fears that Zika will spread into all parts of the world where dengue is commonplace.
More than one-third of the world's population lives in areas at risk of dengue infection in a band stretching through Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Latin America.
Zika's rapid spread to 21 countries and territories in the Americas since May 2015 is due to the prevalence of Aedes aegypti and a lack of immunity among the population, the WHO said in a statement.
 
Collectivity issued a statement today (sorry, no copy of it). Martinique has a lot of cases. St. Marteen - one. St. Bart's - none.
 
We are a bit concerned about this. We have a trip scheduled for April including our married daughter and daughter-in-law who are not pregnant (at the moment). We told them before they get on the plane they must take a pregnancy test and get a negative result!
 
WA ("Wise Amy") offers great advice. So far, so good on SBH . . . but why should a pregnant woman unknowingly take risk?
 
Our granddaughter is on her way back from volunteering for three weeks at a children's home in Haiti. She said Zika is all over the place there. Thankfully it appears so far that she escaped this one. She had chikungunga from a previous trip there.
 
This is a world wide problem. It seems every day a new country is reporting a case..Please be extra diligent in applying repellents before heading out.
 
If what has been said about a possible connection between Zika and Guillam Barre turns out to be true, that is also very serious, for the general population. GB is a horrible disease.
 
MargMar said:
do you know where you saw this article?
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debd said:
If what has been said about a possible connection between Zika and Guillam Barre turns out to be true, that is also very serious, for the general population. GB is a horrible disease.
Click to expand...

Guillain-Barré has been known to be among the neurologic complications of Dengue. A link between Chikungunya and Guillain-Barré is also now suspected.

One of the theories is that an immune reaction to sequential arboviral infections may be playing a role in what is being seen with Guillain-Barré… another is that, with Zika, a strain of the virus may have mutated in a way that makes it better at invading nerve cells… both theories may be wrong, both may be right… By the time this is figured out by those who have the ability and knowledge to do so, I suspect another emerging disease or two may find us...

A comment regarding the press release can be found,ignored, or both here on the forum.
 
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