Most recent conclusions about the global health emergency
The Zika virus—part of the virus family Flaviviridae, and the genus Flavivirus—has been making headlines recently as the latest global health emergency, partly due to the fact that relatively little is known about true scale of the epidemic. Current estimates put the number of cases in the current outbreak as high as 1.6 million, with over 90 per cent of those cases in Brazil, host of the 2016 Summer Olympics.
“The level of alarm is extremely high, as is the level of uncertainty. Questions abound. We need to get some answers quickly,” said Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), during a briefing for member countries. The WHO says as many as three to four million people could be infected within the next year if rates are not reduced.
Conversely, Canada’s chief public health officer Dr. Gregory Taylor described the threat within Canada as “very, very low.”
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]…have yet to be any cases actually transmitted within Canada.[/pullquote]
Zika virus has been confirmed among four Canadian travelers who visited the Caribbean, El Salvador and Colombia. There have yet to be any cases actually transmitted within Canada. According to Health Canada, Zika virus symptoms can include fever, headache, conjunctivitis (pink eye) and rash, along with joint and muscle pain. The illness is typically mild, and only lasts a few days.
The primary vector for spreading the virus is the mosquito, specifically Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. The range of the A. aegypti mosquito extends up to Mexico and the extreme southern United States, while A. albopictus on the other hand, can be found all the way up the Eastern half of the U.S. to the Great Lakes, posing some risk to Southern Ontario citizens. It is not yet known if more northern varieties of mosquito could become a vector for the disease. In Texas, a case was recently confirmed to have been spread through sexual intercourse.
Interestingly, a compounding factor to the explosive growth of the virus over the last few months was the climate. The strong El Niño weather pattern, which has persisted through the winter, resulted in warmer and wetter seasons in areas east of the Pacific Ocean; prime conditions for mosquito breeding.
Currently, there is no vaccine or medication available to combat the virus. Preventing the spread of Zika is really the best tool for containing the virus at this time. If you are visiting any countries where the virus is widespread, considering packing lots of bug spray and a mosquito net for sleeping. The Government of Canada has issued a Level Two Travel Advisory for those travelling to Central and South America, which urges caution to travelers, particularly pregnant women.
The main source of controversy surrounding the Zika virus is its potential association with the neurodevelopmental disorder known as microcephaly. Evidence for a connection to microcephaly is strong, yet it must be emphasized that it has not yet been confirmed. In Brazil, pregnant women who were infected with the Zika virus have given birth to babies with abnormally small heads. These deformities are the result of an underdeveloped brain, and infants have poor life expectancy with much reduced brain function. At time of writing, approximately 3,718 cases of microcephaly were reported to be associated with the virus.
There is also evidence of a connection of Zika virus to Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS), an autoimmune disease causing rapid-onset muscle weakness and failure. Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Suriname, and Venezuela have observed an increase of GBS as Zika cases mount, the WHO said in an update on Feb. 5, 2016. Brazil alone saw a 19 per cent increase in cases of GBS last year, which scientists suspect is due to the spread of Zika. While microcephaly has dominated the news cycle recently, it may in fact be GBS that becomes the larger story.
As summer arrives in our region of the world, concerns of the spread of Zika virus will likely become more prominent, similar to the West Nile virus outbreak in Canada in 2007, when 2,215 cases were reported.