Zika virus

[SMHarman]

The reports on the spread of this virus are becoming more panicked. Airlines are now refunding tickets to women who want to cancel reservations to affected areas. It has occurred to be that a virus that is so devastating to a fetus could possibly prove more damaging to children and to adults than presently thought. I ask again: has anyone changed plans or canceled travel to Mexico, So. America or the Caribbean because of it?

It's a topic of conversation here daily. Off to St John on Saturday.

 

[MULTIZ321]

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL2N15C1PJJet Blue Joins String of Airlines Refunding Travel to Zika-Hit Areas - from Reuters.



Jan 28 (Reuters) -" JetBlue Airways Corp will refund customers with tickets to areas impacted by the Zika virus or let them rebook flights, a spokesman said on Thursday.

New York-based JetBlue, a top player in Caribbean travel, is the latest in a string of airlines - from United Continental Holdings Inc to Latam Airlines Group SA - to refund vacationers planning to travel to regions impacted by the mosquito-borne virus."


Richard

 

[MULTIZ321]

Factbox: Facts About the Zika Virus and the Current Outbreak.

http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-facts-zika-virus-current-outbreak-204444654.html



Reposted the URL

Richard

 

[deemarket]

Aruba trip

We bought our airline tickets and secured 2 exchanges for a two week trip to Aruba in May. Aruba right now is not listed as having the zika virus but the way it is spreading it could be there by the time we travel. I have a compromised immune system and will be checking with my doctor to see what he recommends.

So yes I may change my travel plans.

 

[SMHarman]

Factbox: Facts About the Zika Virus and the Current Outbreak.

http://news.yahoo.com/factbox-facts-zika-virus-current-outbreak-204444654.html



Reposted the URL

Richard

While nobody in our group is pregnant or planning to get pregnant in the next ~20 years the Guillain Barre syndrome secondary risk is a concern.

We have a crib mosquito net for the little one.

Not sure how WSJ feels about screwing eye hooks into the ceiling for the other beds.

Anyway these are morning / evening mosquitos and the rain this week won't help us. Apparently they come out in strength after the rain.

Edit - updated thought.

Though with one case and the fact this is not transferred between mosquitoes but the mosquito transfers it human to human I am less concerned.

Lots of mozzie repellent purchased.

 

[MULTIZ321]

All the Places the Untreatable Zika Virus Has Spread to So Far - by Lydia Ramsey and Dylan Roach/ Science/ Business Insider/ businessinsider.com

"The Zika virus is quickly expanding its reach, particularly in the Americas. So far its spread has drawn concern from the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and US President Barack Obama.

The virus, transmitted via mosquitoes, has been identified in the US but only in people who've recently traveled to Zika hot spots. Once infected with Zika, only about 20% of people ever show symptoms, which most commonly include fever, rash, joint pain, and red eyes. There is no vaccine or treatment available for the virus. One reason Zika is troubling is because it has been linked with birth defects. After some mothers showed symptoms of the virus during their pregnancy, their babies were born with abnormally small brains, a condition known as microcephaly.

Here are the 24 countries and territories where the virus had been transmitted locally as of Wednesday:..."

Richard

 

[MULTIZ321]

Zika-Linked Brain Damage in Infants May Be 'Tip of the Iceberg' - by Lourdes Garcia-Navarro/ Goats and Soda:Stories of Life in a Changing World/ National Public Radio (NPR)/ npr.org

"Dr. João Ricardo de Almeida is part of a team in Brazil that's investigating the cases of microcephaly — brain damage in infants born to mothers who contracted Zika virus during their pregnancy. He's examined dozens of brain scans, and he says that the scans are "very scary to look at."

"You see very profound abnormalities," says the neuro-radiologist. "Usually it's striking."

And they're notably different than scans of other babies born with the birth defect..."


Richard

 

[MULTIZ321]

New Weapon to Fight Zika: The Mosquito - by Andrew Polllack/ Business Day/ International New York Times/ The New York Times/ nytimes.com

"Every weekday at 7 a.m., a van drives slowly through the southeastern Brazilian city of Piracicaba carrying a precious cargo — mosquitoes. More than 100,000 of them are dumped from plastic containers out the van’s window, and they fly off to find mates.

But these are not ordinary mosquitoes. They have been genetically engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, which die before they can reach adulthood. In small tests, this approach has lowered mosquito populations by 80 percent or more.

The biotech bugs could become one of the newest weapons in the perennial battle between humans and mosquitoes, which kill hundreds of thousands of people a year by transmitting malaria, dengue fever and other devastating diseases and have been called the deadliest animal in the world.

“When it comes to killing humans, no other animal even comes close,” Bill Gates, whose foundation fights disease globally, has written..."

Separating male and female mosquito larvae at Oxitec, a biotech company that is releasing genetically modified male mosquitoes into Piracicaba, Brazil, to fight diseases like dengue and Zika. Credit Cristiano Burmester for The New York Times


Richard

 

[SMHarman]

New Weapon to Fight Zika: The Mosquito - by Andrew Polllack/ Business Day/ International New York Times/ The New York Times/ nytimes.com

"Every weekday at 7 a.m., a van drives slowly through the southeastern Brazilian city of Piracicaba carrying a precious cargo — mosquitoes. More than 100,000 of them are dumped from plastic containers out the van’s window, and they fly off to find mates.

But these are not ordinary mosquitoes. They have been genetically engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, which die before they can reach adulthood. In small tests, this approach has lowered mosquito populations by 80 percent or more.

The biotech bugs could become one of the newest weapons in the perennial battle between humans and mosquitoes, which kill hundreds of thousands of people a year by transmitting malaria, dengue fever and other devastating diseases and have been called the deadliest animal in the world.

“When it comes to killing humans, no other animal even comes close,” Bill Gates, whose foundation fights disease globally, has written..."

Separating male and female mosquito larvae at Oxitec, a biotech company that is releasing genetically modified male mosquitoes into Piracicaba, Brazil, to fight diseases like dengue and Zika. Credit Cristiano Burmester for The New York Times


Richard

The release of these mosquitoes is at the epicenter of the zika outbreak. That may not be a coincidence. Up to 15% do not die as planned. The Roy Batty's of mosquitoes (waits to see who gets the reference)

 

[Chilcotin]

Information from three doctors on Zika Virus

The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) National News had a panel of three doctors discuss the Zika Virus on Friday's broadcast. It runs about ten minutes and has factual information.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/zika-virus-how-concerned-should-you-be-1.3426784

 

[MULTIZ321]

How Scared Should You Be About Zika? - by Michael T. Osterholm/ Sunday Review/ Opinion/ International New York Times/ The New York Times/ nytimes.com

"Every time there is a major infectious disease outbreak that scares us — Ebola in West Africa in 2014, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) on the Arabian Peninsula in 2012 and in South Korea in 2015, and now the Zika virus in South and Central America and the Caribbean — government leaders, the public and the news media demand explanations, guidance and predictions, and often express indignation that not enough was done to prevent it. Today everyone is asking about Zika: How did this crisis happen, and what do we need to do to make it go away? We immediately forget about the outbreak that came before it, and don’t plan for the ones we know are on the horizon. Almost no one wants to talk about Ebola or MERS now, or what we have or haven’t done to try to prevent an ugly recurrence.

When it comes to diseases, we have a very short attention span, and we tend to be reactive, rather than proactive. Instead of devoting ourselves to a comprehensive plan to combat microbial threats, we scramble to respond to the latest one in the headlines. There are lessons from previous infectious disease outbreaks that could and should have left us much better prepared than we are..."

Roman Muradov



Richard

 

[MuranoJo]

Ironically, the increased use of pesticides is killing off birds who feed on mosquitoes. With every passing year, our population of hummingbirds dwindles and we've read at least part of that is due to pesticides.

We had a significant mosquito population 10 or so years ago, until a family of barn swallows moved in. They return every year and practically wipe out the mosquitoes, so I'm looking for ways to increase their habitat around here.

 

[MULTIZ321]

Zika has been Sexually Transmitted in Texas, CDC Confirms - by Sandee LaMotte/ Health/ CNN/ edition.cnn.com

(CNN)Zika has been sexually transmitted in Texas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. It is the first known case of the virus being locally acquired in the continental United States in the current outbreak.

The case, announced by Dallas County health officials, involved a patient who had sex with someone who had recently returned from Venezuela infected with the mosquito-borne virus.

In a statement to CNN, the CDC said it confirmed the test results showing Zika present in the blood of a "nontraveler in the continental United States." They stressed that there was no risk to a developing fetus in this instance..."


Richard

 

[vacationhopeful]

I have a bat colony living in my well-pit. Plus a Hoot-Owl living in a tree very close to my bedroom windows. Both species are good neighbors .. although the hoot owl is un-nerving to city folk.

This morning, a flock of 30-40 turkeys were wandering thru my backyard. Plus several deer cross thru my yard regularly enough to not get hit on the road out in front of the house.

At least I have not seem any black bears...or wolves ... yet.

 

[MULTIZ321]

Race is On to Develop Zika Vaccine But Tests on Pregnant Women Raise Concern - by Oliver Milman/ World/ Zika Virus/ The Guardian/ theguardian.com

The race is under way to develop a vaccine for the Zika virus but the urgency of the situation is being tempered by concerns over testing on pregnant women – a group of people normally shielded from experimental trials.

The World Health Organisation has declared an international public health emergency over concerns – as yet unproven – that the virus causes brain damage and birth defects in children.

The disease has spread to more than 20 countries in South and Central America, with fears that more than 4 million people could be infected by the end of the year. Pregnant women have been urged not to travel to about two dozen countries where the outbreak is growing.

Zika has been linked to the development of unusually small heads, known as microcephaly, and brain damage in babies. Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, has vowed there will be “no lack of funding” to fight the spread of Zika and said that Brazil and the US will partner to develop a vaccine against the virus..."

Richard

 

[MULTIZ321]

How can Viruses Like Zika Cause Birth Defects? -by Maya Wei-Haas/ Science-Nature/ SmithsonianMag.com

"While the link between Zika and microcephaly is uncertain, similar diseases show how the virus might be affecting infants

In adults, the symptoms of the Zika virus are relatively mild—rashes, fever, joint pain, malaise. Most who are infected may not even know it. But as this seemingly routine disease spreads across the Americas, so do cases of a much more severe problem: infants born with microcephaly.

This birth defect comes from malformation of the brain, leaving those inflicted with varying degrees of shrunken heads and in many cases a slew of neurologic problems. These include hearing troubles, developmental delays and intellectual impairment.

Brazil usually sees a couple hundred cases of microcephaly per year—a number that some suggest is unusually low due to underreporting. Diseases from parasites like malaria or toxoplasmosis, genetic mutations and even excessive alcohol consumption during early pregnancy can all cause microcephaly. But since October 2015, well over 3,500 infants have been reported with telltale signs of the deformation, coinciding with the explosive spread of the Zika virus in the region.

The spotty information from this outbreak is not enough to definitively say whether Zika causes microcephaly. But the link is plausible, and medical experts are looking to other viruses known to cause developmental defects to try to figure out Zika’s potential pathway to destruction.

Certain viruses really love the brain,” says Kristina Adams Waldorf, an obstetrics and gynecology doctor who studies how infection induces preterm labor. Cytomegalovirus and rubella have relatively mild impacts on healthy adults but can cause debilitating birth defects. And varicella-zoster virus (which causes chicken pox) can cause a host of complications, including problems in the brain.

Many mosquito-borne viruses, like West Nile, also cause forms of brain injury in adults. “So it’s not a big stretch for us to make the connection between a mosquito-born virus [and] microcephaly,” she says.

Spread mainly by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, Zika was first identified in Uganda in 1947 in rhesus monkeys. Notable outbreaks struck humans on the tiny island of Yap in 2007 and in French Polynesia in 2013. But few people in the Americas had likely heard of Zika until the recent outbreak exploded in Brazil.




Richard

 

[MULTIZ321]

An Innovative Suitcase Lab Used to Fight Ebola Could Help Us Untangle the Zika Epidemic - by Ana Campoy/ Road Test/ Quartz/ qz.com

"The World Health Organization has declared Zika a global health emergency, because it believes the risks are high enough for a global response. And yet, we understand little about the virus and its effects on people. Zika’s links to neurological conditions, such as microcephaly—abnormal brain development in newborns—remain unproven.

A team of Brazilian and African scientists (link in Portuguese) believe rapid and thorough testing for Zika will be key to solving that mystery. Given Brazil’s vast size and limited infrastructure, though, they’re having to deploy an inventive diagnostic tool to achieve that: A suitcase-sized laboratory.

Since the beginning of the year, researchers from the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of São Paulo University and the Pasteur Institute of Dakar, Senegal have been working to adapt mobile-laboratory technology, which was used in Africa to detect Ebola, to analyze Brazil’s Zika epidemic. The whole thing weighs less than 20 kgs (44 pounds) and is operated with a laptop. The components used to test samples, which would have to be kept frozen in a traditional lab setting, are all in powder form, not unlike a boxed cake mix that only requires water.

The mobile lab will start testing patients’ saliva, blood and urine in the northeastern state of Sergipe, where dozens of microcephaly cases (Portuguese) have been reported, in mid-February. The test results will be available within 30 minutes, instead of the many hours or even days that commonly used techniques require..."


Richard

 

[SMHarman]

Even well covered in spray we are all still bitten.

The stupid design of the Westin Coral bay has no bug screens. More on the stupid design decisions of coral bay in another thread.

Locals more concerned with Chik

 

[lvhmbh]

We are going to South America (Buenos Aires, Mendoza and then cruise from BA to Rio in a couple of weeks. We'll take spray - DH gets bitten but I'm usually not although if I do get bitten he cowers inside lol! as that means they're really serious. I'm not worried but will be vigilant. We have a tour guide for a day in Rio and will probably stay in the car in the forest.

 

[moonstone]

Pretty scary! http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...re-than-3100-pregnancies-zika-virus/79929146/

~Diane

 

[Luanne]

We got off the ship in both Mexican ports. Made sure we used insect repellant. I saw no mosquitoes.

 

[dioxide45]

I thought this was interesting. Perhaps Zika isn't responsible for birth defects at all. Perhaps there are other causes.

http://www.naturalnews.com/052863_Zika_virus_Tdap_vaccine_GMO_mosquitoes.html

 

[laura1957]

A friend and her hubby are in Antigua right now, and my hubby and I are headed to Riviera Maya in 2 weeks - of course, we are well past our child-bearing years...

 

[Crif]

Zika virus is an emerging mosquito-borne virus that was first identified in Uganda. Zika virus disease have been recorded in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific.

Signs & symptoms
The symptoms are similar to arboviral infections. such as dengue, fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise, and headache.

Crif

 

[SMHarman]

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/1...-of-brazils-microcephaly-outbreak-doctors.htm

A group of Argentine physicians claim that the sudden microcephaly outbreak in Brazil was not caused by the Zika virus, but by a larvicide injected into the country's water supplies.*