Zika virus ‘could be worse than we thought’
April 12, 2016, 9:57 pm

Brazilian scientists continue to find other possible Zika links to brain diseases [Xinhua]

“Most of what we’re learning is not reassuring. Everything we look at with this virus seems to be a bit scarier than we initially thought,” says it’s deputy director Anne Schuchat.

She said that the US needs to be ready for the possibility that the virus could spread widely as hotter months approach in the Northern Hemisphere.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US, the Zika disease is a virus spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which thrives in hot and humid climates.

It was first reported in a monkey living in the Zika Forest in Uganda in 1947, and spread to humans in Africa and Asia within a few years.

The Aedes mosquito bites an infected person and then carries the virus to another person it bites. The virus is transmitted from a mother to a child during pregnancy or birth.

But on Tuesday, Schuchat said that the CDC has learned that the virus is linked to a “broader set of complications” in pregnancy, additionally listing blindness and other eye problems as well as premature births.

“We have learned that the Aedes aegypti mosquito is present in a broader range of states in the continental US,” she said. The number of states where it is present was increased from 12 to 30, she said.

Schuchat also said that the CDC is particularly concerned about Puerto Rico where the virus has quickly spread throughout the island.

While 346 cases of the Zika virus have been reported in the continental US, Schuchat warned that hundreds of thousands of people could be infected in Puerto Rico.

Meanwhile in Brazil, which is considered ground zero in the fight against the Zika virus and where scientists have made alarming discoveries about its impact on humans, researchers on Tuesday said they discovered additional brain diseases linked to the outbreak.

Brazilian researchers said that two people infected with the Zika virus later developed a condition called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), where the immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord.

While they have yet to prove that Zika causes ADEM, the scientists say there is a definite association.

ADEM is similar to multiple sclerosis (MS), but differs in that an attack occurs on the brain and spinal cord occurs only once; patients recover after about six months. In MS, attacks repeat.

Additionally, scientists at the D’Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR) and at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) say that the ZIKA virus can also produce harmful effects in human neural stem cells, neurospheres and brain organoids, which are lab-grown ‘mini-brains’.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies