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February 1, 2016
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Five Things You Need to Know About Zika
By Sandee LaMotte, CNN
January 27, 2016
1. What is Zika and why is it so serious?
The Zika virus is a flavivirus, part of the same family as yellow fever, West Nile, chikungunya
and dengue. But unlike some of those viruses, there is no vaccine to prevent Zika or medicine to
treat the infection.
Zika is commanding worldwide attention because of an alarming connection between the virus
and microcephaly, a neurological disorder that results in babies being born with abnormally
small heads. This causes severe developmental issues and sometimes death.
Since November, Brazil has seen 4,180 cases of microcephaly in babies born to women who
were infected with Zika during their pregnancies. To put that in perspective, there were only 146
cases in 2014. So far, 51 babies have died.
Other Latin American countries are now seeing cases in newborns as well, while in the United
States one Hawaiian baby was born with microcephaly linked to the Zika virus after his mother
returned from Brazil. Several states have confirmed the virus in individuals who traveled to areas
where the virus is circulating, including Illinois, where health officials are monitoring two
infected pregnant women.
The CDC is asking OB-GYNs to review fetal ultrasounds and do maternal testing for any
pregnant woman who has traveled to one of the 24 countries where Zika is currently active.
A smaller outbreak of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder that can lead to lifethreatening paralysis, is also linked to Zika in a several countries.
2. How is Zika spread?
The virus is transmitted when an Aedes mosquito bites a person with an active infection and then
spreads the virus by biting others. Those people then become carriers during the time they have
symptoms.
In most people, symptoms of the virus are mild, including fever, headache, rash and possible
pink eye. In fact, 80% of those infected never know they have the disease. That's especially
concerning for pregnant women, as this virus has now been shown to pass through amniotic fluid
to the growing baby.
"What we now know," said Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC's Division of Vector-Borne
Diseases, "is that fetuses can be infected with the virus. That's not new for infectious diseases,
but it is new for this virus."
"This is a very remarkable and unusual situation," agreed Fauci, "because the other flaviviruses
don't do that to our knowledge. You just don't see that with dengue or West Nile or
chikungunya."
In addition, the CDC says there have been documented cases of virus transmission during labor,
blood transfusion, laboratory exposure and sexual contact. While Zika has been found in breast
milk, it's not yet confirmed it can be passed to the baby through nursing.
There have been only two documented cases linking Zika to sex. During the 2013 Zika outbreak
in French Polynesia, semen and urine samples from a 44-year-old Tahitian man tested positive
for Zika even when blood samples did not. Five years before that, in 2008, a Colorado
microbiologist named Brian Foy contracted Zika after travel to Senegal; his wife came down
with the disease a few days later even though she had not left northern Colorado and was not
exposed to any mosquitoes carrying the virus.
3. Where is the Zika virus now?
The Zika virus is now being locally transmitted in Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde,
Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala,
Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin,
Suriname, Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Venezuela, says the CDC.
Zika has arrived in the United States, but only from travelers returning from these infected areas.
The concern, of course, is whether these imported cases could result in locally transmitted cases
within the United States.
The Aedes albopictus, or Asian tiger mosquito, which along with Aedes aegypti transmits Zika
virus, is present in many areas of the United States.
If mosquitoes in the United States do become carriers, a model created by Toronto researchers
found more than 63% of the U.S. population lives in areas where Zika virus might spread during
seasonally warm months. A little over 7% of Americans live in areas where the cold might not
kill off the mosquito in the winter, leaving them vulnerable year round.
4. What can you do to protect yourself against Zika?
With no treatment or vaccine available, the only protection against Zika is to avoid travel to
areas with an active infestation. If you do travel to a country where Zika is present, the CDC
advises strict adherence to mosquito protection measures: Use an EPA-approved repellent over
sunscreen, wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts thick enough to block a mosquito bite, and
sleep in air-conditioned, screened rooms, among others.
If you have Zika, you can keep from spreading it to others by avoiding mosquito bites during the
first week of your illness, says the CDC. The female Aedes aegypti, the primary carrier of Zika,
is an aggressive biter, preferring daytime to dusk and indoors to outdoors. Keeping screens on
windows and doors is critical to preventing entry to homes and hotel rooms.
5. What's being done to stop Zika?
Researchers are hard at work in laboratories around the world trying to create a Zika vaccine.
Until those efforts bear fruit, health officials are implementing traditional mosquito control
techniques such as spraying pesticides and emptying standing water receptacles where
mosquitoes breed. The CDC is encouraging local homeowners, hotel owners and visitors to
countries with Zika outbreaks to join in by also eliminating any standing water they see, such as
in outdoor buckets and flowerpots.
Studies show local control is only marginally effective, since it's so hard to get to all possible
breeding areas. And since Aedes aegypti has evolved to live near humans and "can replicate in
flower vases and other tiny sources of water," said microbiologist Brian Foy, the mosquitoes are
particularly difficult to find and eradicate.
Another prevention effort is OX513A, a genetically modified male Aedes aegypti, dubbed by
critics as the "mutant mosquito" or "Robo-Frankenstein mosquito." The creation of British
company Oxitec, OX513A is designed to stop the spread of Zika by passing along a gene that
makes his offspring die. Since females only mate once, in theory this slows the growth of the
population. Each OX513A carries a fluorescent marker, so he can be tracked by scientists.
Key West, Florida, residents gave the genetically modified male his monster nicknames while
protesting a trial release of the mosquito in 2012 as a way to combat an outbreak of dengue fever
in South Florida. That effort is under review by the Food and Drug Administration.
But field trials in Brazil in 2011 were hugely successful, according to Oxitec, eliminating up to
99% of the target population. A new release of males in the Pedra Branca area of Brazil in 2014
was 92% successful, according to the company. The mosquito has also been tested in the
Cayman Islands, Malaysia and Panama.
Last year, Oxitec announced plans to build an OX513A mosquito production facility in
Piracicaba, Brazil, that it says will be able to protect 300,000 residents.
Questions to consider:
With the 2016 Summer Olympics to be held in Brazil, what complications could arise from the
virus? How would this cause problems for containing the virus?
Compare the Zika virus to the world’s reaction to Ebola last year? Is this a better response?
Will it slow down the spread of the virus if more countries are proactive?
What do you know about the Zika virus? How could this possibly affect you here in Idaho?