Global Health

A health worker fumigates as part of preventive measures against the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases, at the cemetery of Presbitero Maestro in Lima, Peru, February 12, 2016.  Reuters/Mariana Bazo

reuters.com - by Julie Steenhuysen - February 16, 2016

The Zika virus may be particularly adept at entrenching itself in parts of the body that are shielded from the immune system, making it harder to fight off and possibly lengthening the timeframe in which it can be transmitted, top U.S. experts said on Friday.

Researchers reported that Zika virus can be detected in semen for 62 days after a person is infected, adding to evidence of the virus’s presence in fetal brain tissue, placenta and amniotic fluid. Their work is part of an international race to understand the risks associated with Zika, a rapidly spreading mosquito-borne virus thought to be linked to thousands of cases of birth defects in Brazil.

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CLICK HERE - CDC - Emerging Infectious Diseases - Detection of Zika Virus in Semen

Zika and microcephaly questions

Cases may have been under-reported before the arrival of the virus

CLICK HERE - Microcephaly in northeastern Brazil: a review of 16 208 births between 2012 and 2015 (11 page .PDF file)

cbc.ca - February 10, 2016

Large numbers of babies with borderline normal head sizes were born in Brazil as far back as 2012, two years before the Zika virus is thought to have entered the country, say researchers searching for answers to urgent questions.

Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Sandra Mattos had been collecting data on 100,000 newborns in the Brazilian state of Paraiba as part of her work studying and treating congenital heart disease.

The microcephaly fears linked to the Zika virus drove her team to check back into hospital records for head circumferences of more than 1,600 babies born in the state in the last four years.

"We were very, very surprised," Mattos said. Babies with mild microcephaly were present in the population dating back to at least 2012.

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Since 2014, the insecticide Pyriproxyfen has been used to kill mosquitos in water tanks in Brazil. Water tank in Bahia state, northeast Brazil. Photo: Francois Le Minh via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND).

gmwatch.org - by Claire Robinson - February 10, 2016

A report from the Argentine doctors’ organisation, Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns,[1] challenges the theory that the Zika virus epidemic in Brazil is the cause of the increase in the birth defect microcephaly among newborns.  

The increase in this birth defect, in which the baby is born with an abnormally small head and often has brain damage, was quickly linked to the Zika virus by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. However, according to the Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, the Ministry failed to recognise that in the area where most sick people live, a chemical larvicide that produces malformations in mosquitoes was introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014. This poison, Pyriproxyfen, is used in a State-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitoes. . . .