bdmetronews desk ॥ Mosquitos are one of the deadliest insects on earth. As if travelers didn’t have enough to worry about with mosquitos spreading diseases like Dengue, Chikungunya, and West Nile, now there’s a new virus threatening our health: Zika virus.
The CDC has issued a travel alert for people traveling to areas where this once rare virus is now rapidly spreading, and it has advised pregnant women to consider avoiding these regions altogether, as the evidence grows that Zika can cause infected pregnant women to have babies born with the severe birth defects.
The countries of concern include: Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico.
The most common symptoms of Zika, a flavivirus related to Dengue, Yellow Fever, and West Nile, according to Richard Kuhn, Head of Biological Sciences at Purdue University, include flu-like symptoms (fever, body aches, headache), as well as rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis.
Zika virus was originally discovered in Uganda in 1947, and was named after a forest there. It remained an obscure disease found only in Africa and Asia until a small outbreak in 2007 in Micronesia.
But in May of last year, perhaps due to Africans traveling to Brazil for the world cup, according to some experts, the virus appeared and soon exploded across South American country. Now the Brazilian Ministry of Health estimates that up to 1.5 million people may be infected.
Amid the outbreak, Brazilian health officials noticed a spike in microcephaly, a potentially deadly form of abnormal brain development in newborns. Experts there say there is strong evidence of a connection to mothers infected with Zika. In fact, the Ministry has taken the unprecedented step of advising women in the northeast region of the country to avoid getting pregnant for the foreseeable future due to the risk.
Anyone who has not previously had Zika and is traveling in an area where Zika is an issue could be at risk. The best way to stay healthy is to avoid getting mosquito bites in the first place. According to the CDC, mosquito repellants containing DEET, picaridin, IR3535, and oil of lemon eucalyptus and para-methane-diol offer protection and are safe for pregnant women.
