Zika Virus

[katmai]

Kinda like Tomas.

[lustindarkness]

Kinda like Tomas.

IKR? Lets give this little asshole a biblical name, people will think he is a good guy. Pffft

[Josquius]

Newsnight today they were talking about whether zika's spread to central america could lead to a reform of the fucked up abortion laws there.
Interesting angle

[mongers]

I should add that unsurprisingly there's already some bullshit out there on the 'ether', claiming the outbreak originates from a release of genetically modified mosquito in the same area, wherever that is.

Can't be arsed to post a link as the one I saw was to zerohedge and generally life's too short to bother with that stuff. If you want to check out this 'hypothesis' I'm sure google will turn up enough links.

[Norgy]

Kinda like Tomas.

By the way, I'm in the "God's punishment" or "Big pharma hoax" on this one. A virus that sounds like folksy band from Bolivia? Can't take that seriously.

[Fate]

Small bump:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/02/06/world/americas/ap-zika-virus.html?_r=2

BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said Saturday that there's no evidence Zika has caused any cases of the birth defect known as microcephaly in his country, though it has diagnosed 3,177 pregnant women with the virus.

Santos also announced that a U.S. medical-scientific team will arrive in Colombia to help investigate the mosquito-borne virus.

Brazilian officials say they suspect Zika is behind a seemingly unusual number of microcephaly cases, in which children are born with unusually small heads. The link is not confirmed, but it has helped prompt the World Health Organization to declare an emergency over the virus.

Santos says Zika apparently has affected more than 25,600 Colombians overall.

Colombian officials said Friday that three people had died of the paralyzing Guillain-Barre syndrome they attributed to cases of Zika.

To date, the mosquito-borne virus has spread to more than 20 countries in the Americas.

With global concern over the Zika virus growing, health officials are warning pregnant women to be careful about who they kiss and calling on men to use condoms with pregnant partners if they have visited countries where the virus is present.

The flurry of recommendations began in Brazil, where a top health official said that scientists have found live virus in saliva and urine samples, and the possibility it could be spread by the two body fluids requires further study.

As more numbers come in we'll get a clearer picture, but I think this further supports the idea Brazil was uncovering systemic underdiagnosis of microcephaly from other causes rather than seeing a new spike purely attributable to Zika. I definitely think the CDC/WHO went overboard since this involves pregnant women and is overreacting to their deficiencies when it came to the West African Ebola response.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Ermahgerd it is here and spreading!  I'm doooooooooooooooomed



(3 cases in Bexar county now: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Two-more-cases-of-Zika-virus-confirmed-in-Bexar-6821515.php)

[Caliga]

Ermahgerd it is here and spreading!  I'm doooooooooooooooomed



(3 cases in Bexar county now: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Two-more-cases-of-Zika-virus-confirmed-in-Bexar-6821515.php)

Unless you're a chick I don't think you need to worry.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Unless you're a chick I don't think you need to worry.

men who travel to areas that are affected by Zika are advised to abstain from sex or use condoms for three months after returning,

Disaster.

[CountDeMoney]

I definitely think the CDC/WHO went overboard since this involves pregnant women and is overreacting to their deficiencies when it came to the West African Ebola response.

Tenuous association to microcephaly or not, Zika is still a mosquito-borne flavivirus pushing asymptomatic incidents at 80%--so there's no such thing as overreacting when it comes to acting in the national interest of defending the US blood supply.

And stop combining the CDC and the WHO.  It's unseemly.

[Barrister]

As more numbers come in we'll get a clearer picture, but I think this further supports the idea Brazil was uncovering systemic underdiagnosis of microcephaly from other causes rather than seeing a new spike purely attributable to Zika. I definitely think the CDC/WHO went overboard since this involves pregnant women and is overreacting to their deficiencies when it came to the West African Ebola response.

WHO now officially feels that Zika causes microcephaly:

The outbreak has led to a rush on research to solidify these links, and in the cases of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré, the connection is finally strong enough to be called causal. In its Zika situation report on Thursday, the World Health Organization used the word "cause" to describe the relationship between Zika and these two conditions.

"Based on a growing body of preliminary research, there is scientific consensus that Zika virus is a cause of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome," the report reads.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/zika-linked-to-ever-more-neurological-conditions/477720/

[Fate]

Yeah, similar articles are now showing up in the New England Journal of Medicine. I still take issue with the WHO in terms of Zika causality, but mosquito eradication is a great public health benefit for other reasons. I recognize that I'm in a very small minority regarding causation.

The fact remains that Brazil's prior reporting of microcephaly cases is highly questionable. There is no reason to believe that Brazil is a special snowflake and had a real microcephaly rate 100 times below what is normal for a first world country like the United States until the year 2015.

We're putting an international spotlight on a developing country and applying first world expectations. I argue they simply had shit data in the prior years and now Brazil is likely reaching report rates that are normal for a country their size. In a country of 200 million people and 3 million births there should be about 15,000 cases of microcephaly in a normal year. If Zika is truly increasing the incidence we should see far greater numbers than that... but we're only at 3500.

Small update regarding my original hypothesis. In the past 6 months there were 6900 cases of microcephaly recorded in Brazil per the WHO. For the sake of argument let's say there will possibly be 14000 cases over the course of a year.

This is entirely in line with what I hypothesized before - that if Brazil has the same incidence of microcephaly as the United States (0.53% of live births), then we'd expect 15000 cases/year in Brazil before the Zika virus even set foot on the continent of South America.

If Zika is causing an increased incidence of microcephaly, then we should see much more than 15000 cases/year in Brazil. It will be interesting to look back on this in the next few years and see if I was totally off my rocker or if the WHO was overstating the case for causation.

[garbon]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-36401150

Zika crisis: WHO rejects 'move Rio Olympics' call

The World Health Organization (WHO) has rejected a call to move or postpone this summer's Rio Olympic Games over the Zika outbreak.

It said this would "not significantly alter" the spread of the virus, which is linked to serious birth defects.

In an open letter to the WHO, more than 100 leading scientists had said new findings about Zika made it "unethical" for the Games to go ahead.

They also said the global health body should revisit its Zika guidance.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said it sees no reason to delay or move the Games because of the mosquito-borne disease.

The outbreak began in Brazil a year ago, but now more than 60 countries and territories have continuing transmission.

Between February and April 2016, Brazil's health ministry registered 91,387 likely cases of the Zika virus. The number of babies born with Zika-linked defects stood at 4,908 in April.

While Zika's symptoms are mild, in the letter the experts say it causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and may also cause a rare and sometimes fatal neurological syndrome in adults.

The letter is signed by 150 international scientists, doctors and medical ethicists from such institutions as Oxford University and Harvard and Yale universities in the United States.

They cite the failure of a mosquito-eradication programme in Brazil, and the country's "weakened" health system as reasons to postpone or move the Olympics in "the name of public health".

"An unnecessary risk is posed when 500,000 foreign tourists from all countries attend the Games, potentially acquire that strain, and return home to places where it can become endemic," the letter says.

The biggest risk, it adds, is if athletes contract the virus and returned home to poor countries that have not yet suffered a Zika outbreak.

They also express concern the WHO has a conflict of interest because of its partnership with the IOC.

The Rio Olympics are due to take place between 5 and 21 August.

In a statement, the WHO, which has declared the Zika virus a global public health emergency, said: "Brazil is one of almost 60 countries and territories which to date report continuing transmission of Zika by mosquitoes.

"People continue to travel between these countries and territories for a variety of reasons. The best way to reduce risk of disease is to follow public health travel advice."

Several public health experts had previously warned that hundreds of thousands of people arriving in Rio would speed up Zika's spread and lead to the births of brain-damaged babies.

But on Thursday, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), whose advice is quoted approvingly in the letter, said the threat did not warrant halting the Games.

"There is no public health reason to cancel or delay the Olympics," Dr Tom Frieden said.

However, he urged the US to act more quickly to prevent pregnant women contracting Zika, amid congressional deadlock over the release of $1.9bn (£1.3bn) in funding.

And virology researcher Oliver Brady, from Oxford University, said the risk was comparatively low because the Olympics would take place during Brazil's winter.

"We really think August is about 20 to 40 times lower risk than we see around now or in January where we see these large numbers of cases reported from Rio," he told the BBC.

The Olympics have never been moved for public health reasons but Fifa relocated its 2003 Women's World Cup from China to the US because of the Sars epidemic.

On another note, why does the BBC hate paragraphs?

[Fate]

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1604037?query=featured_home

New study in the NEJM which looked at 12,000 Zika positive pregnant women in Colombia. None of the fetuses developed microcephaly. The caveat is that most of the women were infected in the third trimester, but about 1200 were first and second trimester. In the next half year we should have more substantial data on first and second trimester Zika infections in Colombia. 0 cases in this population group is reassuring. If they don't find anything in the expanded study then I think the CDC may have to backtrack on causation.

[CountDeMoney]

No, the CDC will not be backtracking at all.