Sweetwater - 1-25-2016 at 01:07 PM
The World Health Organization is tracking the next virus that targets us humans. Glad I'm not of child bearing age anymore....well the woman I know
best isn't....
CDC
WHO expects Zika virus to spread to all but 2 countries in the Americas
By Emily Smith, CNN | Posted Jan 25th, 2016 @ 10:26am
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The WHO anticipates the Zika virus will likely spread to all but two countries in South, Central and North America.
The mosquito-borne disease has raged in South America and other regions for several months.
Twenty one countries and territories of the Americas have reported cases of the virus since Brazil reported the first cases of local transmission in
May 2015, WHO's regional office for the Americas said in a statement.
"Aedes mosquitoes — the main vector for Zika transmission — are present in all the region's countries except Canada and continental Chile," the
statement said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged pregnant women to postpone travel to Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador,
French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Saint Martin, Suriname, Samoa, Venezuela and
Puerto Rico. The CDC also recommended women who have recently traveled to these places during their pregnancy be screened and monitored for the virus.
Sweetwater - 1-25-2016 at 01:13 PM
Background
Zika virus is a mosquito-borne flavivirus closely related to dengue virus. It was first isolated from a rhesus monkey
in Zika forest, Uganda in 1947, in mosquitoes (Aedes africanus) in the same forest in 1948 and in humans in Nigeria in 1954. Zika virus is endemic in
parts of Africa and Asia and was first identified in the South Pacific after an outbreak on Yap Island in the Federated States of Micronesia in 2007.
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Great info here: http://www.wpro.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs_05182015_z...
Bajahowodd - 1-25-2016 at 04:58 PM
The insidious nature of this virus is that it has such mild symptoms. Just a funky day or two.
The long term effect concerns children born of pregnant women who contracted this disease after they became pregnant.
BajaBlanca - 1-26-2016 at 03:15 AM
Huge news item in Brazil now with the Olympics coming up and with the thousands of babies being born with small heads/brains - I think they are
calling it microencephalia.
Very sad days.
wessongroup - 1-26-2016 at 09:39 AM
Amazing how some "life" forms can be so disruptive to other life forms ... but, it is all part of evolution on this planet
Would think this one, will be much harder to deal with than ebola ... given the "vector" and the growing habitat of the "critter" on the planet
[Edited on 1-26-2016 by wessongroup]
Sweetwater - 1-27-2016 at 06:55 PM
Just like many systemic viruses, there are still a lot of answers to be found. The pregnancy issue is micro-cephaly which is an undersized and
underdeveloped brain. It's associated with infection while pregnant, at least for now.
For adults, there are new questions whether it's sexually transmitted, this would be another vector for infection. It's also linked to Guillain Barre
Syndrome which can be life threatening. I've got a buddy who went down that road after a moto ride through Baja. Also, the fact that the virus is
similar to denge should be a warning since that has been endemic to Baja for a long time.
One of the issues that lies at the base of Zika like the range extension for the primary vector, those mosquitoes. Warmer and moister climates seem to
be expanding, induced or naturally, it doesn't matter. The simple fact is that as the planet warms with more El Ninos, we face more of this type of
evolution.