Alarm in Brazil over virus and a surge in malformed infants

Zika virus was only detected in Africa and Asia in 2007, but is spreading across Oceania, Latin America, and some areas of Europe.

Health officials are also warning Brazilians – especially pregnant women – to stay inside when possible and wear plenty of bug spray if they have to go out. “Why this may have happened in Brazil and not elsewhere is at this stage hard to answer”, said Alain Kohl, a virologist, adding that the link between Zika and microcephaly could be related to particular strains of the virus.

More than 2,700 babies have been born in Brazil with microcephaly this year, up from fewer than 150 in 2014. The association between the two is under investigation and whether there is an ongoing public health emergency in Brazil remains to be determined.

Brazil has been investigating potential links between Zika virus infection in pregnancy and fetal microcephaly since October 2015, when the Brazilian Ministry of Health reported an unusual surge in cases of microcephaly in newborns following a Zika virus outbreak in the northeastern states. There have already been cases diagnosed in the United States, in travelers who visited affected countries, and the CDC expects these instances to increase.

This was not the first time that the Zika virus has been reported to have popped up in far-flung parts of the globe.

Just about a month ago the Zika Virus was seen as a rising threat to the largest South American nation – Brazil.

“Normally in a year you’d have maybe three or four cases”, Dr. Kleber Luz, an infection specialist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in the northern city of Natal, reported NPR. She had sought medical attention after experiencing Zika’s symptoms: fever, joint pain and a red rash.

Martinique has become the 11th country in the region to confirm reports of the mosquito borne virus Zika, and the 12th country to confirm local transmission of the disease.

Zika virus, originally identified in 1947 from Zika forest of Uganda, is transmitted to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito.

A female Aedes aegypti mosquito is shown in this Center for Disease Control photograph.

But the mosquito re-emerged in Brazil in the late 1960s, outpacing eradication campaigns. But some suggest the rise in mosquito-borne illnesses like dengue and Zika may be due, in part, to climate change. “The mosquito is exquisitely adapted to human hosts, living in close proximity to humans and feeding repeatedly”, said Maria Diuk-Wasser, a scholar.

Zika is usually mild with symptoms lasting from several days to a week. At the time, Paes was the secretary of tourism, sport and recreation for the state of Rio de Janeiro.