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While previously overlooked due to its mild symptoms and the prevalence of its more threatening cousins, dengue and yellow fever, Zika is making a name for itself as it spreads across the Americas and displays growing correlation with neurological birth defects.
Zika virus is not a new disease. It was discovered in Uganda in 1947 and has been prevalent throughout Africa and Asia for decades. However, this tropical infection is new to the Western Hemisphere. Since Zika's initial detection in Brazil in 2015, the infection has rapidly spread through South and Central American populations with nearly zero immune defense to the virus. “That’s a pandemic in progress,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at the National Institutes of Health.
“It isn’t as if it’s turning around and dying out; it’s getting worse and worse as the days go by.”
Like many other tropical diseases, Zika virus is transmitted primarily by mosquito vector – specifically female mosquitoes of the Aedes genus – and is found in many areas where dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya are also endemic.
While cases of Zika in the United States have been isolated to individuals with travel-associated exposure in countries where Zika outbreaks were present, some Aedes mosquito species capable of carrying the virus can be found in Florida, the Gulf Coast, and Hawaii. Public health officials fear that this could make the U.S. susceptible to an epidemic.
Compared to similar viruses such as dengue and yellow fever, the majority of individuals with Zika infections are asymptomatic or display only mild symptoms such as a rash or red eyes, which often pass within two to seven days. In fact, only about 20% of infected patients have any symptoms at all. What is more concerning to scientists is the apparent link between this viral infection in pregnant women and the development of neurological defects in infants.
Soon after the Zika outbreak was detected in Brazil, authorities reported a significant rise in the prevalence of babies born with microcephaly, a condition characterized by an unusually small head size. Scientists have also uncovered a slew of other neurological problems in infants such as developmental abnormalities and hearing impairment.
Perreault Magazine - 67 -
Over the past six months, headlines across the globe
have alerted the world of the latest public health threat: the Zika virus.