There is a new epidemic, a disease that no one has ever heard of, which may cause a terrible birth defect that few people have heard of. Nevertheless, this new disease quickly has become a health emergency on a par with Ebola, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The disease is caused by the Zika virus — a mosquito-borne disease that, like Ebola, originated in Africa, but is rapidly spreading in Latin America.
Symptoms
4 out of 5 people who are infected won’t even have symptoms. Others have only mild flu-like symptoms — a rash, fever, joint pain, and red eyes — which last several days to a week. But in 1 of 5 cases, Zika virus infection can lead to:
- Guillain–Barré syndrome, that causes temporary or permanent nerve and muscle damage.
- Microcephaly birth defect: babies born with abnormally small heads, who may be severely disabled, both physical and mental, as well as a shorter life span.
Why World Health Organization is concerned
Public health officials are concerned about the fast-spreading Zika virus. WHO director-general Margaret Chan, MD, said, “The level of alarm is extremely high” for four reasons:
- The virus has been tied to severe birth defects, such as brain damage, in babies of infected women.
- The yellow-fever (or Aedes) mosquito that carries the virus is found in nearly every country in North and South America except Canada and Chile.
- People in these countries have never been exposed to the virus before, so there’s very little natural immunity to the virus in the general population.
- There is no vaccine that can prevent the infection, very few tests available to detect it, and no treatments for it.
WHO says the virus is spreading “explosively” in the Americas. Assistant director-general Bruce Aylward, MD, expects there will be 3 million to 4 million Zika infections in the Americas over the next 12 months.
Zika in the U.S.
According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 31 people in the United States ( in 11 states and D.C.) are infected by the Zika virus. All had recently returned from travel in Zika-infected places.
At present, there are no signs that mosquitos in the continental U.S. have the virus. But officials expect local spread of the virus will eventually happen in the U.S., probably in areas that have also seen locally passed dengue fever infections, like the southern tips of Florida and Texas. Dengue is carried by the same species of mosquito that also carries the Zika virus.
Even if Zika does take root in the U.S., we are told it’s not likely to cause widespread misery the way it has in Brazil, in part because Americans use air conditioners and screens on their windows and doors.
Warning for pregnant women
The CDC has issued a travel warning for women who are pregnant or want to become pregnant covering 24 nations and territories in Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Pregnant women are advised to postpone traveling to Zika-infected regions. Those who must travel or live in an affected area are urged to undertake protection against mosquito bites by wearing long sleeves and long pants, and using a mosquito repellent like DEET, which is safe to use during pregnancy.
ZIKA virus can be transmitted through sex
Alarmingly, the CDC just confirmed a first case of the Zika virus that was transmitted by sexual contact in Dallas County.
The patient was infected with the virus after having sexual contact with an ill individual who returned from a country where Zika virus is present.
Dallas County Health and Human Services (DCHHS) director Zachary Thompson said that “Zika virus can be transmitted through sex” and counsels the use of condoms or abstinence as the best prevention method against Zika and any sexually-transmitted infections.
Zika virus mosquito is genetically modified?
A clinical psychologist named Kathy J. Forti claims that the Zika virus, which has been detected in 18 of the 26 states in Brazil, is transmitted by the genetically-modified Aedes mosquito, developed by the British biotech company Oxitec to battle dengue fever.
Since 2011, Oxitec has been producing 2 million genetically-modified mosquitoes a week in its factory in Campinas, Brazil.
Oxitec is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito, also called yellow fever mosquito, is the world’s most dominant variety of mosquito that is commonly found throughout the subtropical and tropical Americas. The only two countries in the Americas that don’t have this mosquito are Chile and Canada.
A vaccine, not Zika virus, causes Brazil’s microcephalic babies?
Since late October, Brazil has seen more than 4,000 cases of microcephaly, 6 cases of which have been definitely linked to Zika, leaving the cause of the other cases still under investigation.
Dr. Forti maintains that it is the Tdap vaccine, not the Zika virus, that causes microcephaly birth defects in Brazil, because:
- Only a small number of Brazilian babies with birth defects who died, had the Zika virus in their brain or in the mother’s placenta. This means a large number of the babies who died had no Zika virus in their brain.
- Zika has been around since before 1948 and has never been known to cause birth defects and/or death.
- Brazilian mothers who gave birth to microcephalic babies had received a newly-formulated untested vaccine, Tdap, when they were pregnant because in late 2014, the Brazilian government made it mandatory for all expectant mothers to get a Tdap shot.
- The Tdap shot, which combines the Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis (whooping-cough) vaccines into a single jab, has never been proven safe for use during pregnancy, but is classified by the FDA as a Class C drug, which means it is NOT safe during pregnancy.
In 2011, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) issued a recommendation that pregnant women receive the Tdap shot at 20 weeks gestation.
In 2015, the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program received a $307,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study the immune responses of pregnant women who had received the Tdap vaccine.
Sources: CDC, WebMD, ABC13; Trifinity8
H/t FOTM‘s MomOfIV
~Eowyn
