For a few years now, different countries have recorded outbreaks of a life-threatening viral disease known as zika virus. The first recorded outbreak of zika virus disease was in 2007, from the Island of Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia and many countries have had to deal with the virus disease, including the Americas.
The zika virus was first identified in Uganda in 1947. In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that the virus was likely going to spread throughout most of the Americas before the year concluded, and it was estimated that in Brazil, 1.5 million people were infected by Zika.
HOW IS ZIKA VIRUS TRANSMITTED?
Mosquitoes have been known to be deadly, and are responsible for the spread of epidemic diseases, like malaria, and they are the primary transmitters of zika virus. Zika is primarily spread by the bite of an infected Aedes mosquito, the same mosquito that transmits dengue, yellow fever, and chikungunya. Aedes mosquitoes are usually active during the day and early in the evening, and usually bite during these periods.
Zika virus can also be transmitted through sexual contact, transfusion of blood, and from mother to fetus during pregnancy.
SYMPTOMS OF ZIKA VIRUS
The incubation period of zika virus disease can occur for about three days or even linger for two weeks. Symptoms like fever, itching all over the body, headache, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, and malaise develops and usually last for about 2-7 days.
However, the majority won’t exhibit these symptoms at all, and according to Amesh Adalja, MD, a spokesman of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, only about one in five people with the virus will exhibit symptoms.
COMPLICATIONS OF ZIKA VIRUS
When zika virus is transferred from mother to child, microcephaly, and some other congenital abnormalities arise. Also, zika infection in pregnancy results in some pregnancy complications, like preterm birth, stillbirth, and fetal loss.
According to WHO, the virus infection is a trigger of Gullian-Barre syndrome, neuropathy and myelitis particular in older children and adults.
WHAT ARE THE CURRENT TRENDS AND EVENTS WITH ZIKA VIRUS?
As stated earlier, zika virus was first discovered in Uganda, in the year 1947, and the virus is still common in Africa. The virus is also very common in the continent of Asia. Zika virus didn’t begin to spread in the Western Hemisphere till May 2015, when Brazil experienced an outbreak. Since then, it has affected the Caribbean and Latin America to no small extent. Although only a few cases have been reported in the United States and Europe, they are not totally free from the reach of the virus.
In 2017, the Brazilian government declared an end to the epidemic, following a 95 percent drop in the number of cases that year. However, a slight increase in the reported number of cases in Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador has been depicted. Provisional data from CDC as of January 2, 2019 shows that from the 1st of January, 2015, to the 2nd of January, 2019, 5,746 symptomatic cases of zika virus disease have been reported in the United States, and 37,204 symptomatic cases of the zika virus have been reported in the US territories. 55 of the cases of the virus in the United States were due to sexual contact, suggesting that recently, the spread of zika virus is increasing through sex.
Recent findings have indicated that children with a history of dengue virus infection (which is also transmitted by Aedes mosquito) may be able to fight the virus due to the immunity to dengue virus.
IS ZIKA IN TORONTO?
In Toronto, the first confirmed case of the zika infection was identified in 2016, and from that time till May 2017, 295 citizens of Toronto were infected with zika virus. Majority of the infected people travelled to countries where the virus is prevalent before the detection of the infection. Sexual interaction with infected persons can introduce the zika virus to people in Toronto, as well as travelling to countries where the zika virus is prevalent.