Official Zika Virus Thread: Letter Collaborated on Accuses WHO of conflict of interest re: Rio/Zika

[jpzx]

I'll post some of the latest research being done, but man, we've got ourselves a live one.

That's the skeletal opening post, hope you didn't enjoy because it sucked (but I'll provide more later when I am not busy, as I am now).

 

[jpzx]

For now though:

Zika virus (ZIKV) was first described in 1947, and became a health emergency problem in 2016 when its association with fetal microcephaly cases was confirmed by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States. To date, ZIKV infection has been documented in 66 countries. ZIKV is recognized as a neurotropic virus and numerous diseases manifested in multiple neurological disorders have been described, mainly in countries that have been exposed to ZIKV after the 2007 outbreak in the Federated States of Micronesia. The most dramatic consequence of ZIKV infection documented is the abrupt increase in fetal microcephaly cases in Brazil.

CDC has received reports of Zika virus being spread by sexual contact with sick returning travelers. Until more is known, CDC continues to recommend that pregnant women and women trying to become pregnant take the following precautions.

B]Pregnant women should not travel to any area with Zika.[/B]

If you must travel to or live in one of these areas, talk to your healthcare provider first and strictly follow steps to prevent mosquito bites.

If you have a male partner who lives in or has traveled to an area with Zika, either use condoms, the right way, every time you have sex or do not have sex during your pregnancy.

Women trying to get pregnant

Before you or your male partner travel, talk to your healthcare provider about your plans to become pregnant and the risk of Zika virus infection.
You and your male partner should strictly follow steps to prevent mosquito bites.

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is very likely triggered by Zika in a small proportion of infections, much as it is after a variety of other infections. CDC is working with Brazil to study the possibility of a link between Zika and GBS.

 

[slicknick951]

The amount of testing that has come through our lab is crazy. I dont understand why pregnant women continue to travel to these areas knowing the risk.

 

[ohokalright]

2016 ebola?

West nile?

Anthrax?

Y2K?

 

[slicknick951]

2016 ebola?

West nile?

Anthrax?

Y2K?

This is what i have been thinking as well but who knows can never be too safe.

 

[$tacy]

Is it in the bahamas tho? I'm going back in August.

 

[jpzx]

^ No cases yet, I believe but warnings/at-risk.


Also:


Link: http://news.mit.edu/2016/paper-based-test-zika-virus-0506

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“In a small number of weeks, we developed and validated a relatively rapid, inexpensive Zika diagnostic platform,” says Collins, who is also a member of the Wyss Institute.

Collins and his colleagues developed sensors, embedded in the paper discs, that can detect 24 different RNA sequences found in the Zika viral genome, which, like that of many viruses, is composed of RNA instead of DNA. When the target RNA sequence is present, it initiates a series of interactions that turns the paper from yellow to purple.

This color change can be seen with the naked eye, but the researchers also developed an electronic reader that makes it easier to quantify the change, especially in cases where the sensor is detecting more than one RNA sequence.

All of the cellular components necessary for this process — including proteins, nucleic acids, and ribosomes — can be extracted from living cells and freeze-dried onto paper. These paper discs can be stored at room temperature, making it easy to ship them to any location. Once rehydrated, all of the components function just as they would inside a living cell.

The researchers also incorporated a step that boosts the amount of viral RNA in the blood sample before exposing it to the sensor, using a system called NASBA (nucleic acid sequence based amplification). This amplification step, which takes one to two hours, increases the test’s sensitivity 1 million-fold.

The team tested the new device using synthesized RNA sequences corresponding to the Zika genome, which were were then added to human blood serum. The researchers showed that the device could detect very low viral RNA concentrations in those samples and could also distinguish Zika from dengue.

The researchers then tested the device with samples taken from monkeys infected with the Zika virus. (Samples from human patients affected by the current Zika outbreak are very difficult to obtain.) They found that in these samples, the device could detect viral RNA concentrations as low as 2 or 3 parts per quadrillion.

The researchers envision that this approach could also be adapted to other viruses that may emerge in the future. Collins now hopes to team up with other scientists to further develop the technology for diagnosing Zika.

 

[ben roethlisberger]

2016 ebola?

West nile?

Anthrax?

Y2K?

Swine flu

Bird Flu

H1N1

Wonder what ever happened to those?

 

[jpzx]

^ Among other things, the Zika virus specifically targets developing brain cells in fetuses, depending on when the pregnant woman/impending pregnant woman was infected.

So- for you to inform yourself, there aren't many viruses like this that specifically target the developing brain. Researchers were/are puzzled when that was first discovered, as neurological targeting a new development in disease area/specific targeting. Soooo it's not H1N1 patna.

Will the world end? No. The seriousness and/or potentials are seemingly more serious when it comes to the advanced form of what this virus does and infection scenarios.

But correct me, thereby reducing the accuracy, I can't knock the hustle.

South Korea reports first confirmed case of Zika

The fourth case of a Zika virus infection in South Korea has been found in a 25-year-old woman who recently came back from a trip to Vietnam, local health authorities said Saturday.

The unmarried woman, whose identity was withheld, worked in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam from April 10-30 and entered South Korea on May 1, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said.

She visited a hospital in the western port city of Incheon on May 4 to treat a chronic thyroid gland problem after having rash and joint pain and was diagnosed with the mosquito-borne virus.

The KCDC suspected she might have been bitten by a mosquito while in the Southeast Asian nation, noting the patient is currently in stable condition.

Health authorities are also examining a person who met with the patient in Vietnam between April 13-17 for potential transmission of the virus.

The latest case raises the number of confirmed infections in South Korea to four.

In March, a 43-year-old man who was bitten by a mosquito during a trip to South America was confirmed to be the first to have the virus in the country.

Top-35 golfer from Australia drops out of Olympics due to Zika threat

The 35th-ranked golfer in the world, Mark Leishman, announced that he won’t play for Australia at the Rio Olympics in August because of the health threat posed by the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

The 32-year-old Australian joins a number of golfers jettisoning the Olympics from their golf schedules, including Vijay Singh, who told the Golf Channel last month that he’s passing on the Rio games because of the Brazil’s continuing health crisis.

“I would like to play the Olympics,” said Singh, “but the Zika virus, you know and all that crap.”

Leishman’s wife, Audrey, developed toxic shock syndrome last year, which nearly took her life. After conferring with Audrey’s doctors the three time winner on the PGA tour decided to withdraw his name from the Rio event.

“Last April my children and I almost lost Audrey,” Leishman said in a statement released by the PGA of Australia. “Since then Audrey has been prone to infection and is far removed from 100 percent recovery of her immune system.

“We have consulted with Audrey’s physician and due to her ongoing recovery and potential risks associated with the transmission of the Zika virus it was a difficult yet easy decision not to participate.”

According to Golf.com, the withdrawal by 7th-ranked golfer, Australian Adam Scott—who stated he wants to concentrate on PGA events—and Leishman’s cancellation leaves Marcus Fraser, No. 63, and Matt Jones, 71, likely replacements for the Australian Olympic golf team.

Brazil is considered ground zero for the Zika virus. The disease, as Breitbart News reported, produces microcephaly, a condition where “an infant is born with a skull too small for his or her head. The skull crushes the brain, causing a variety of neurological abnormalities.” Over 5,000 cases of microcephaly surfaced since its outbreak.

 

[ben roethlisberger]

Just asked a simple question famb lol.

Anyone have an idea about what happened to the last 5-10 "outbreaks" they told us to be fearful of?

 

[dopeness]

#1 Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals in the world because of the diseases they spread.

A female mosquito infected with Zika can continue biting people over its lifespan of about 30 days.

​Only 2 known species of mosquitoes spread Zika, out of 176 species of mosquitoes identified in the US.

 

[jpzx]

Yeah, Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquitoes.

Here's a U.S. infographic showing where Aedes are in prevalence around the country, they obviously are actively keeping tabs on risk factors only when risks present themselves enough where they're prompted to do so:

View media item 2022495

 

[dopeness]

Yeah, Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquitoes.

Here's a U.S. infographic showing where Aedes are in prevalence around the country, they obviously are actively keeping tabs on risk factors only when risks present themselves enough where they're prompted to do so:

The west is chillin'...

 

[mike honcho]

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Spoiler

 

[AZwildcats]

Man those pictures of the kids born with the small heads is heartbreaking.

 

[jpzx]

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[jpzx]

Two cases of peripartum transmission of Zika virus have been reported among mother–infant pairs.56 Zika virus RNA was detected in both infants; one infant had a mild rash illness and thrombocytopenia, whereas the other was asymptomatic.

Sexual transmission to partners of returning male travelers who acquired Zika virus infection abroad has been reported.57-59 In one instance, sexual intercourse occurred only before the onset of symptoms, whereas in other cases sexual intercourse occurred during the development of symptoms and shortly thereafter. The risk factors for and the duration of the risk of sexual transmission have not been determined. Replicative viral particles, as well as viral RNA — often in high copy numbers — have been identified in sperm, and viral RNA has been detected up to 62 days after the onset of symptoms

One case of Zika virus transmission occurred after a monkey bite in Indonesia, although mosquito-borne transmission could not be ruled out.65 Two infections in laboratories have been reported.16,66 A volunteer became infected after subcutaneous injection of infected mouse brain suspension.67 Transmission through breast milk has not been documented, although the breast milk of a woman who became symptomatic with Zika virus infection on the day of delivery contained infective Zika viral particles in high titer.

Link: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1602113

 

[slighted]

Just asked a simple question famb lol.

Anyone have an idea about what happened to the last 5-10 "outbreaks" they told us to be fearful of?

Something new "to be feared" is always coming out. Rinse and repeat.

 

[jpzx]

Sports Illustrated ‏@SInow 5h
A doctor warns that Brazil’s Olympics must not proceed due to the Zika virus http://on.si.com/24L7bQA

The Palm Beach Post @pbpost 3h
Zika virus cases in Florida at 109 after two more in Miami-Dade http://pbpo.st/1rS01YG

Senator Patty Murray @PattyMurray May 9
Even with more than 1000 reported cases of Zika in the U.S., Republican leaders have refused to act. … #ZikaVirus

Florida Democrats @FlaDems 4h
"Protect our fellow Americans" –@SenBillNelson urges GOP Senators to join the fight against the #Zika virus

KVUE News ‏@KVUE 4h
Williamson County confirms travel-related case of Zika Virus: https://t.co/3EM4auCadB

CBS Sports Soccer @CBSSportsSoccer
Brazil soccer legend: Your life is at risk if you come to Brazil for Olympics http://cbsprt.co/1T7YGcE

GOLF.comVerified account ‏@golf_com 6m
The Zika virus continues to cast a shadow over golf's return to the #Olympics - http://bit.ly/24Jfn06

HuffPost Living ‏@HealthyLiving 2h
Zika virus remains in urine longer than blood, CDC says http://huff.to/1ZCkYSB

Everyday HealthVerified ‏@EverydayHealth 2h
4 myths about the Zika virus: http://bit.ly/1qcecXu

NACCHO @NACCHOalerts 4h
Our letter to the Senate requesting emergency funding for #Zikavirus with @usmayors @leagueofcities http://ow.ly/dFjk3005fDA

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[jpzx]

Planet Fútbol @si_soccer
USWNT's Alex Morgan wary of Zika virus ahead of Olympics: on.si.com/1XjHxNf

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Gov. Rick Scott heads to Washington Wednesday where he intends to get Congress to focus on Zika. Florida leads the nation in the number of Zika infections and that is making Scott an unlikely ally of President Obama's request for $1.9 billion to fight the mosquito-borne virus.

Congressional leaders are refusing to meet Obama’s request. They say there is enough money left over from the effort to fight an Ebola outbreak to fill the need until the next budget cycle. The dispute puts Scott in an unusual position, advocating for more federal government spending. Scott first ventured into politics as the head of a group opposed to Obamacare. As a fiscal conservative, he generally believes government spending distorts market forces and has an overall negative impact on the economy.

But Florida health officials warn a wet rainy summer could lead to an explosion in the mosquito population and ignite a Zika outbreak along the Gulf Coast like a powder keg. Scott told reporters Tuesday his job is to keep Florida's 20 million residents safe.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/05/10/fla-gov-seeks-federal-funds-zika/84215558/

 

[jpzx]

Let me comandeer that vehickular dee-vice right quik

 

[jpzx]

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[leavemeglazzies]

Feel sorry for Brazil. Between this and the country's economic and social problems, these Olympics will be a catastrophe for them.

 

[jpzx]

Combined proteomics and mRNA transcriptional profile analyses showed that Brazilian ZIKV, prior to induce cell death, alters cell cycle and halts neurogenic programmes, in addition to regulate transcription and protein translation due to viral replication. These results point to biological mechanisms potentially implicated in brain malformations as a result of ZIKV congenital infection.

https://peerj.com/preprints/2033/

 

[jpzx]

Yoooooo

No human outbreaks of more than a few people until...

2007 - A state basically governed by the United States, Micronesia (99 Zika infections)
2008 - ....

Check it out below.

So a state under the purview of America and then two Americans undergo sexual transmission of the Zika virus infection in freaking 2008.

Sex After Field Trip Yields A Scientific First


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via ScienceMag I Link: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/04/sex-after-field-trip-yields-scientific-first


A U.S. vector biologist appears to have accidentally written virological history simply by having sex with his wife after returning from a field trip to Senegal. A study just released in Emerging Infectious Diseases suggests that the researcher, Brian Foy of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, passed to his wife the Zika virus, an obscure pathogen that causes joint pains and extreme fatigue. If so, it would be the first documented case of sexual transmission of an insect-borne disease.

Foy is the first author of the paper, which describes three anonymous patients. But in an interview with Science, he confirmed that he is the anonymous "patient 1"; his Ph.D. student Kevin Kobylinski, who accompanied him on the trip to Senegal and also got sick, is "patient 2." Foy's wife, Joy Chilson Foy, a nurse at the Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, is "patient 3"; she is also a co-author of the paper.

Exactly what happened when Foy and Kobylinski returned from Senegal on 24 August 2008 has remained a mystery for years. As part of their research on malaria, the scientists had been collecting mosquitoes in a southeastern village called Bandafassi, where they were often bitten. About 5 days after their return, both researchers got sick. Both had a rash on their torso, extreme fatigue, headaches, and swollen and painful wrists, knees, and ankles. Foy also had symptoms of prostatitis, including painful urination, and he and his wife noticed what looked like blood in his semen, according to the paper.

On 3 September, Foy's wife's fell ill as well, with malaise, chills, extreme headache, hypersensitivity to light, and muscle pains. The couple's four children remained healthy. The symptoms started receding within about a week in all three patients, although the joint pains lingered.

The scientists suspected they were infected through one of their many mosquito bites but were stumped as to the pathogen. So were several laboratories, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose lab for insect-borne diseases is in Fort Collins. Antibody tests on serum samples from the two scientists tested positive for dengue, a viral disease that might have explained the symptoms, but samples from Chilson Foy came back negative. "Eventually, the CDC said, 'We think you had dengue, but we don't know what your wife had,' " says Foy, who decided to keep samples from all three in the freezer.

The mystery might never have been solved if Kobylinski hadn't gone out for a few beers with Andrew Haddow, a medical entomologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston, during another trip to Senegal more than a year later. Haddow, who studies how pathogens survive in the jungle and emerge when humans encroach, had a great personal interest in Zika: His grandfather, Alexander Haddow, was one of three scientists who had isolated the virus from a rhesus monkey in the Zika Forest near Entebbe, Uganda, in 1947 and described it in a paper in 1952. "I read all of my grandfather's papers, so that stuff really interests me," Haddow says.

Zika, he speculated, might account for the trio's symptoms—even though "it was just a hunch." After Kobylinski returned home in December 2009 and told Foy about the encounter, they decided to send the samples to Haddow, who asked his UTMB colleague Robert Tesh, a veteran virologist, to run a battery of tests, including one for the Zika virus. Sure enough, all three samples had antibodies to the virus. "Then it all fell into place," Foy says. The dengue antibodies were a red herring, he says: both researchers had been vaccinated for the yellow fever virus, which is closely related to dengue; antibodies against these viruses often cross-react.

There is no direct evidence that Foy's wife was infected through sexual contact, but the circumstantial evidence is strong. It's very unlikely that she was infected by a bite by a mosquito that first bit her husband; the three tropical Aedes mosquito species known to transmit Zika don't live in northern Colorado, and moreover, the virus has to complete a 2-week life cycle within the insect before it can infect the next human; Foy's wife fell ill just 9 days after his return. And yes, as the paper puts it, "patients 1 and 3 reported having vaginal sexual intercourse in the days after patient 1 returned home but before the onset of his clinical illness." ("My wife wasn't happy with what happened afterwards," Foy adds.)

Not much is known about the Zika virus, which is found in many parts of Africa and Southeast Asia. Researchers from the Pasteur Institute in Dakar reported in 1993 that it occurs in southeastern Senegal, where Foy and Kobylinski work, but it's unknown how often it causes disease. Most cases are never reported or are mistaken for dengue, a much more widespread disease, Haddow says. In fact, only 14 Zika cases had ever been described in the medical literature until an explosive outbreak occurred in 2007 on Yap, an island in the Federated States of Micronesia, where it had never been seen before. An extensive investigation of that epidemic by CDC concluded that 73% of the population was infected, an impressive number that suddenly made Zika an emerging pathogen to watch.

Foy and his co-authors believe sexual transmission of a mosquito-borne virus has never been reported before, although there were hints from the literature that it might be possible. Boars experimentally infected with the Japanese encephalitis virus, for instance, shed the virus in their semen, and female pigs artificially inseminated with it become infected.

Scientists already knew that many insect-borne pathogens can be transmitted orally as well, says medical entomologist Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. So even if it hasn't been documented before, it's not a big surprise that infected semen deposited inside the vagina could cause an infection, he says.

What's still unclear is how important sexual transmission is in Zika's epidemiology. Haddow believes it plays a very minor role at best and that the vast majority of cases occur through mosquito bites. Yet a few data points from the Yap outbreak hint that sexual transmission may have played a role, Foy says. The population aged between 30 and 59 was hardest hit, and among women, the so-called attack rate—the percentage of people who get sick—was almost 50% higher than among men. (With most sexually transmitted infections, vaginal intercourse poses a higher risk of infection for women.) But there could be other explanations for that as well; Foy says he's interested in studying the issue.

Haddow is doing more research on Zika as well. Although he never really knew his grandfather, he says that stories about his career inspired him to become a virus hunter, and helping solve the Fort Collins riddle, he adds, was "a very good feeling. ... I think my grandfather would have been happy too."