11 ms·

The alarming threat of Zika virus

130 points by kungfudoi 11y ago

ptha 11y ago
Beside by mosquito, apparently it can also be transmitted sexually: "In 2009, Brian Foy, a biologist from the Arthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory at Colorado State University, sexually transmitted the Zika virus to his wife. He visited Senegal to study mosquitoes and was bitten on a number of occasions. A few days after returning to the United States, he fell ill with Zika, but not before having had unprotected intercourse with his wife. She subsequently showed symptoms of Zika infection with extreme sensitivity to light. Foy is the first person known to have passed on an insect-borne virus to another human by sexual contact. In 2015, Zika virus RNA was detected in the amniotic fluid of two fetuses, indicating that it crossed the placenta and could cause fetal infection. On 20 January 2016, scientists from the state of Paraná, Brazil, detected genetic material of Zika virus in the placenta of a woman, who had undergone an abortion due to the fetus' microcephaly, which confirmed that the virus is able to pass the placenta." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zika_virus#Transmission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zika_virus#Transmission
- woliveirajr 11y ago
  In Brazil there were public recommendations for women about avoiding getting pregnant, specially in the NE region of the country. In a terrible use of words, the minister of public health "wished" that every girl got the Zika virus before beginning her... hum... "mature period", so that she would be protect before having any possibility of getting pregnant.
  - sandworm101 11y ago
    Those don't sound like terrible words to me. That sounds like a rather practical approach. And he brings up an interesting dynamic. Perhaps this wave of birth defects is partially linked to mosquito eradication. With fewer bugs around, or at least people being bitten less often, fewer girls get the disease early. A childhood disease may be returning as something far more dangerous in adults, like chickenpox. That would seem a possibility worth investigating.
    - schoen 11y ago
      Brazilians generally believe that the disease was first introduced to the country last year, which contradicts the hypothesis that acquired immunity used to be common. (I was in Brazil three weeks ago and talked to several people about zika.) Here is an item from European health authorities that agrees that the disease is new to Brazil. http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/rapid-risk-assessment-Zika%20virus-south-america-Brazil-2015.pdf http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/rapid-ris... Edit: the linked BBC article also states that it was first reported in Brazil in May 2015 (at least in recent years).
    - sjg007 11y ago
      Would screening program for antibodies should resolve that?
    - ufo 11y ago
      There are as many mosquitos here as there have always been... Its very hard to get rid of them in a tropical country.
  - Fomite 11y ago
    While not phrased in the best way, wanting a disease whose major consequence is in pregnancy to have a very early average age of infection isn't particularly flawed. The same thing is true for rubella in countries without a robust vaccination program.
- woliveirajr 11y ago
  In Brazil there were public recommendations for women about avoiding getting pregnant, specially in the NE region of the country. In a terrible use of words, the minister of public health "wished" that every girl got the Zika virus before beginning her... hum... "mature period", so that she would be protect before having any possibility of getting pregnant.
- iofj 11y ago
  You should treat disease transmission vectors as subsets : air > contact > sharing food/toilet facilities > sexual > blood Any disease, say the flue, that can be transmitted by "sharing air" can be transmitted by contact, by sharing food, and sexually and blood transfusion (with very few exceptions) They're subsets of one another. Sexually transmitted diseases are mostly that because they can't be transmitted any other way (other than sharing blood). In fact a number of "sexually transmitted" diseases can't be transmitted sexually at all. But apparently it's somewhat common for humans' sexual organs to develop scratches during sex, resulting in blood mixing. So a number of sexually transmitted diseases cannot in fact be transmitted without exchange of blood. And euhm ... scratches are more common with anal or oral sex (sharp teeth near the relevant parts, I guarantee you there's 5 tiny bleeding scratches in your mouth right now, especially right after eating and/or stretching muscles and tissues beyond their normal limits ... leads to bleeding) (this is not just true in humans, cats for instance are in fact much worse (due to the hook involved ... women might want to skip looking up what that means), when cats breed, you're pretty much guaranteed that you can find blood on the relevant parts. In fact, that is considered one of the signs that it's happened. Because scientists are not free to experiment on humans but are (more) free to experiment on cats we actually know more about disease transmission in pets and horses than we do about it in humans)
XFrequentist 11y ago
The definition of microcephaly is actually head circumference less than 32cm (not 42cm - that's like the 99th percentile). Brazil changed their definition from 33cm during this event, so their case count includes some borderline babies.
ohitsdom 11y ago
Another example case that could be solved by exterminating mosquitoes. We have the ability, and as best we know there would be little to no side effects. Humans are already drastically altering evolution and survival of the fittest, we might as well be smart about it.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  Cost is the largest reason. While you're right in saying that we can exterminate mosquitoes, the question remains how costly that would be. For example if we used the infertile male mosquito method, we'd need to bread billions of them and release them very carefully for maximum effect. That's do-able but a massive undertaking. Plus we could spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars on this (perhaps more) and have them spring back up a few years later just from a single missed colony (keep in mind they can breed in almost ALL still water, from a puddle, to a lake, to a water holding tank). In the Americas you'd have to wipe them out in massive areas of jungle, every island, every country (even ones with bad relations), it is just mind boggling once you start thinking about it. It is totally possible but would be the single largest human undertaking in our history. PS - Indefinite population control might be more viable than literal extinction. Then you just release infertile males every season in the hopes of dropping their numbers in half or better.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    With the possibility of being able to insert inherited traits via recent genetic advances, I believe more modern methods are looking at genetic combinations that are repressed in the parent, but lethal to any offspring (or cause infertility in offspring). [1] [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35024794 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35024794
  - crusso 11y ago
    No, cost is not a reason. The infertile male mosquito method isn't the best one we have. Geneticists have discovered ways to drive terminal genes into entire populations. A mosquito species could be wiped out in no time with a gene drive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive
LyndsySimon 11y ago
The answer here seems obvious - DDT.
- Fomite 11y ago
  Because DDT doesn't have any adverse effects on human health at all.
  - refurb 11y ago
    DDT is actually has a very low toxicity for humans. It was the environment impact that was a concern.
- cjensen 11y ago
  There's a weird urban legend going around that DDT would solve mosquito problems -- usually with the implication that environmentalists are evil for banning this terrific substance. You appear to have succumbed to this urban legend. The story is just not true. DDT was banned not because of blind chemical-phobia, but because the molecule is way too stable. It stays in the food chain and environment for decades. Eventually, it builds up in certain predators and wipes them out. There are plenty of insecticides which are perfectly usable, but without DDT's problematic stability. Stability does not help with mosquito control, so the lack of stability does not hurt effectiveness. Consider the Silicon Valley. 150 years ago the land that Facebook is on was considered uninhabitable due to mosquitos. If DDT was that crucial to killing mosquitos, then mosquitos should have recovered in the 40 years since the ban. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
  - refurb 11y ago
    Stability is not a help with mosquito control? Of course it is. You can dust your dwelling and not have to treat again for a month due to the stability. It certainly is a benefit. Yes, DDT builds up in organisms and can cause reproductive issues in some birds. The point the OP is trying to make is that we as a society decided that bird health is more important than human health. And I'm not sure I understand your Silicon Valley example. The land that Facebook was on was drained and backfilled. No standing water, no mosquitos. What does DDT have to do with it?
glibgil 11y ago
It is never a good idea to have unsafe sex with your partner as soon as they arrive home from a trip. It is is best to let a little time pass for symptoms or conscience to develop.
- zepto 11y ago
  One way around this is to have them followed by a private investigator when they are away from you.
  - miander 11y ago
    I think you misunderstood what he meant... How is a private investigator going to catch him being bitten by an infected mosquito?
    - zepto 11y ago
      The parent mentioned conscience, which speaks directly to my understanding. Separately, the piece mentions that one person in the world is known to become infected through this vector, making the risk absolutely negligible.
    - scrumper 11y ago
      I took it as a joke about questioning the left-behind-at-home spouse's fidelity, quite a good one too.
    - justusthane 11y ago
      I think you actually misunderstood the joke :)
- dang 11y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10946398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10946398 and marked it off-topic.
josu 11y ago
It's not only Zika, the Chikungunya [1] virus has also reappeared in Latin America, which is also spread by the same mosquito. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikungunya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikungunya
- shas3 11y ago
  Chikungunya is a horrible malaise. It is very prevalent in India. While not deadly, it can cripple you for days and also leave lasting damage to joints in older people. Every adult in my family in India has gone through a bout of it. It is a recent phenomenon, viral-arthritis type diseases were rare till chikangunya made an appearance. I dread visiting India because of the widespread prevalence of this disease and dengue.
  - josu 11y ago
    It's very prevalent in Mexico too, however it has mainly affected low and middle-low income families, my guess is that due to poor sanitation and the areas where they live (near likes and swamps). What about in India? Because from what I can infer from your comment it seems that is much more widespread over there.
    - shas3 11y ago
      The problem in India is that the poor and the rich don't necessarily live in very different sanitary conditions. In my experience, the situation is likely worse in poorer neighborhoods, but it is still very, very bad in rich neighborhoods. Unlike countries with similar economic development metrics, India is particularly filthy. So much so that, 'Swacch Bharat' aka 'Clean India' is a big effort by the current Government. This study from Johns Hopkins University, for example details how the prevalence mosquito-borne fevers does not follow income/class: www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2015/burden-of-dengue-chikungunya-in-india-far-worse-than-understood.html To quote, " Researchers estimated that on average, 23 percent of those who have not yet been infected become infected by dengue every year, corresponding to roughly 228,000 infections per year in Chennai alone. “This rate of infection is extremely high, almost three times higher than in areas of Brazil and Thailand where transmission was thought to be high,” says Rodríguez-Barraquer. They also found that the rate of infection in Chennai was similar in poor communities as in more affluent neighborhoods.  The research is believed to be the first to systematically measure dengue and chikungunya infection rates in India. “If you don’t understand the extent of the problem, you can’t address it,” she says. "
rafaelm 11y ago
I'm totally terrified by this thing right now because my wife is pregnant. There's tons of mosquitoes here in Venezuela . She already got Haemorrhagic Dengue about 10 months ago. The worst part is that because of the terrible state of the economy here, there's no insect repellent in the stores and no proper Zika test kits in the hospitals. The sanitary situation here is getting worse everyday (constant shortage of food and medicine). Add to that the constant politization of everything, the govt hasn't even issued any infection figures or warnings. I had to ask a friend coming from the US to bring some DEET repellent. But not everyone has the same opportunity.
- theklub 11y ago
  Man that's terrible. Just curious, why can't you order it online?
  - pjc50 11y ago
    Because Amazon is in Brazil, not Venezuela. (Joking aside, Venezuela has a quasi-command economy with foreign exchange controls; this results in a shortage of imported goods and it may be prohibitively expensive to do a personal import)
    - hobs 11y ago
      What about a personal package being sent? If it would help a guy from having his pregnant wife getting some insane fever, I could ship him a box of DEET stuff.
      - rafaelm 11y ago
        There are a lot of forwarding services here that let you buy stuff online, have it sent to a US address and then they send it to you in Venezuela. I actually do some occasional work for one such company. Also, since so many venezuelans are leaving the country, lots of people living in Panama and the US are sending stuff to their friends and family in the country using these companies. The shipping and taxes are expensive sometimes but it's an alternative at least.
dfar1 11y ago
Brazil can't get their mosquitoes under control. They have been struggling to eradicate Dengue (breakbone fever) for years. Health authority is too slow, too unprepared, and lacking budget. The government is corrupt and the people don't seem to care.
- forinti 11y ago
  "people don't seem to care." That's the real problem from which all others derive.
jcromartie 11y ago
It seems that microcephaly is associated with onset of Zika during the first trimester of pregnancy. Considering the mild nature of the illness, couldn't the virus be its own vaccine? Could a woman proactively contract the virus while postponing pregnancy, in order to thwart it?
- hemicyclium 11y ago
  I expect the situation is similar to the flu: once you contract a strain, you develop immunity to that specific strain, but as soon as the disease, which is under highly selective pressure to mutate, mutates, you are once again susceptible to the new strain. It might work for a short while, but not a full pregnancy.
epx 11y ago
A grandnephew of my wife was born with microcephaly, likely one of the first victims of Zika virus, when the surge of the birth defect was still not detected by public health. I can just imagine the social cost of that -- how many persons in family will have to dedicate to care, work just to supply money for the necessary medical treatments, and/or losing professional opportunities because of this. I estimate the impact in 10:1.
corybrown 11y ago
This is quite scary. Various countries now telling the entire population to stop having kids. There could be a lost generation effect.
betolink 11y ago
This is getting serious here in southern Mexico, we just had a chikungunya outbreak a year ago and now this. These situations remind me of a talk given at Oscon Data by Steve Yegge about working on the things that matter[0]. Virus are complex and modelling molecular biology requires CS expertise, it's kind of sad that we're normally discussing the new JS frameworks instead of working on the hard(and important)problems. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8
- moonchrome 11y ago
  >it's kind of sad that we're normally discussing the new JS frameworks instead of working on the hard(and important)problems. What gives you the impression that people contributing to JS frameworks have the potential to meaningfully contribute to "hard problems" in molecular biology ?
  - vemv 11y ago
    On the micro level, you're right. On the macro level, the new generations of smart talented folks are choosing CS over other career choices.
    - moonchrome 11y ago
      >the new generations of smart talented folks are choosing CS over other career choices Umm... he is arguing that CS is exactly what people should be focusing because CS (ML/data processing, etc.) applied to existing fields and data could lead to new insights - so more smart people going to CS is a good thing (at least according to Yegge). My point is that CS has practically nothing to do with writing JS frameworks and frankly I doubt that most people doing JS development are the kind of people that could make significant contributions to CS or mentioned sciences - maybe a fraction of the top % - but JS is a low barrier to entry, easy to get simple things done, sufficient to solve real world problems like automating CRUD TPS reports - because someone needs to do that as well. I've had the misfortune of working with that platform - JS is by far the lowest quality ecosystem I've seen* (I never really got into PHP so I can't compare). IMO Yegge makes a stronger point suggesting that data science people are being driven to "catbook" projects instead of "important stuff" - but those people are not your everyday JS developers.
kolanos 11y ago
An illness that I thought was influenza just swept through my household and included pretty severe pink eye / conjunctivitis type symptoms. Are there any other viruses circulating North America that would have such symptoms? I live in the Sierra mountains where mosquitos are rare, so I find this all very interesting/confusing.
McKayDavis 11y ago
I live in Hawaii and last week saw the first confirmed case of Zika virus in the United States in a child born with microcephaly on the Big Island. [1] The mother had recently traveled to Brazil and thankfully neither her nor the baby are infectious -- but, living in the tropics, it seems to be only a matter of time until we see mosquitoes carrying Zika here. [1] http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/31007233/hawaii-health-officials-worried-about-potential-threat-from-zika-virus http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/31007233/hawaii-health-of...

130 points by kungfudoi 11y ago

ptha 11y ago

Beside by mosquito, apparently it can also be transmitted sexually: "In 2009, Brian Foy, a biologist from the Arthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory at Colorado State University, sexually transmitted the Zika virus to his wife. He visited Senegal to study mosquitoes and was bitten on a number of occasions. A few days after returning to the United States, he fell ill with Zika, but not before having had unprotected intercourse with his wife. She subsequently showed symptoms of Zika infection with extreme sensitivity to light. Foy is the first person known to have passed on an insect-borne virus to another human by sexual contact. In 2015, Zika virus RNA was detected in the amniotic fluid of two fetuses, indicating that it crossed the placenta and could cause fetal infection. On 20 January 2016, scientists from the state of Paraná, Brazil, detected genetic material of Zika virus in the placenta of a woman, who had undergone an abortion due to the fetus' microcephaly, which confirmed that the virus is able to pass the placenta." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zika_virus#Transmission https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zika_virus#Transmission

woliveirajr 11y ago
In Brazil there were public recommendations for women about avoiding getting pregnant, specially in the NE region of the country. In a terrible use of words, the minister of public health "wished" that every girl got the Zika virus before beginning her... hum... "mature period", so that she would be protect before having any possibility of getting pregnant.
- sandworm101 11y ago
  Those don't sound like terrible words to me. That sounds like a rather practical approach. And he brings up an interesting dynamic. Perhaps this wave of birth defects is partially linked to mosquito eradication. With fewer bugs around, or at least people being bitten less often, fewer girls get the disease early. A childhood disease may be returning as something far more dangerous in adults, like chickenpox. That would seem a possibility worth investigating.
  - schoen 11y ago
    Brazilians generally believe that the disease was first introduced to the country last year, which contradicts the hypothesis that acquired immunity used to be common. (I was in Brazil three weeks ago and talked to several people about zika.) Here is an item from European health authorities that agrees that the disease is new to Brazil. http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/rapid-risk-assessment-Zika%20virus-south-america-Brazil-2015.pdf http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/rapid-ris... Edit: the linked BBC article also states that it was first reported in Brazil in May 2015 (at least in recent years).
  - sjg007 11y ago
    Would screening program for antibodies should resolve that?
  - ufo 11y ago
    There are as many mosquitos here as there have always been... Its very hard to get rid of them in a tropical country.
- Fomite 11y ago
  While not phrased in the best way, wanting a disease whose major consequence is in pregnancy to have a very early average age of infection isn't particularly flawed. The same thing is true for rubella in countries without a robust vaccination program.
woliveirajr 11y ago
In Brazil there were public recommendations for women about avoiding getting pregnant, specially in the NE region of the country. In a terrible use of words, the minister of public health "wished" that every girl got the Zika virus before beginning her... hum... "mature period", so that she would be protect before having any possibility of getting pregnant.
iofj 11y ago
You should treat disease transmission vectors as subsets : air > contact > sharing food/toilet facilities > sexual > blood Any disease, say the flue, that can be transmitted by "sharing air" can be transmitted by contact, by sharing food, and sexually and blood transfusion (with very few exceptions) They're subsets of one another. Sexually transmitted diseases are mostly that because they can't be transmitted any other way (other than sharing blood). In fact a number of "sexually transmitted" diseases can't be transmitted sexually at all. But apparently it's somewhat common for humans' sexual organs to develop scratches during sex, resulting in blood mixing. So a number of sexually transmitted diseases cannot in fact be transmitted without exchange of blood. And euhm ... scratches are more common with anal or oral sex (sharp teeth near the relevant parts, I guarantee you there's 5 tiny bleeding scratches in your mouth right now, especially right after eating and/or stretching muscles and tissues beyond their normal limits ... leads to bleeding) (this is not just true in humans, cats for instance are in fact much worse (due to the hook involved ... women might want to skip looking up what that means), when cats breed, you're pretty much guaranteed that you can find blood on the relevant parts. In fact, that is considered one of the signs that it's happened. Because scientists are not free to experiment on humans but are (more) free to experiment on cats we actually know more about disease transmission in pets and horses than we do about it in humans)

XFrequentist 11y ago

The definition of microcephaly is actually head circumference less than 32cm (not 42cm - that's like the 99th percentile). Brazil changed their definition from 33cm during this event, so their case count includes some borderline babies.

ohitsdom 11y ago

Another example case that could be solved by exterminating mosquitoes. We have the ability, and as best we know there would be little to no side effects. Humans are already drastically altering evolution and survival of the fittest, we might as well be smart about it.

Someone1234 11y ago
Cost is the largest reason. While you're right in saying that we can exterminate mosquitoes, the question remains how costly that would be. For example if we used the infertile male mosquito method, we'd need to bread billions of them and release them very carefully for maximum effect. That's do-able but a massive undertaking. Plus we could spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars on this (perhaps more) and have them spring back up a few years later just from a single missed colony (keep in mind they can breed in almost ALL still water, from a puddle, to a lake, to a water holding tank). In the Americas you'd have to wipe them out in massive areas of jungle, every island, every country (even ones with bad relations), it is just mind boggling once you start thinking about it. It is totally possible but would be the single largest human undertaking in our history. PS - Indefinite population control might be more viable than literal extinction. Then you just release infertile males every season in the hopes of dropping their numbers in half or better.
- ethbro 11y ago
  With the possibility of being able to insert inherited traits via recent genetic advances, I believe more modern methods are looking at genetic combinations that are repressed in the parent, but lethal to any offspring (or cause infertility in offspring). [1] [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35024794 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35024794
- crusso 11y ago
  No, cost is not a reason. The infertile male mosquito method isn't the best one we have. Geneticists have discovered ways to drive terminal genes into entire populations. A mosquito species could be wiped out in no time with a gene drive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive

LyndsySimon 11y ago

The answer here seems obvious - DDT.

Fomite 11y ago
Because DDT doesn't have any adverse effects on human health at all.
- refurb 11y ago
  DDT is actually has a very low toxicity for humans. It was the environment impact that was a concern.
cjensen 11y ago
There's a weird urban legend going around that DDT would solve mosquito problems -- usually with the implication that environmentalists are evil for banning this terrific substance. You appear to have succumbed to this urban legend. The story is just not true. DDT was banned not because of blind chemical-phobia, but because the molecule is way too stable. It stays in the food chain and environment for decades. Eventually, it builds up in certain predators and wipes them out. There are plenty of insecticides which are perfectly usable, but without DDT's problematic stability. Stability does not help with mosquito control, so the lack of stability does not hurt effectiveness. Consider the Silicon Valley. 150 years ago the land that Facebook is on was considered uninhabitable due to mosquitos. If DDT was that crucial to killing mosquitos, then mosquitos should have recovered in the 40 years since the ban. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDT
- refurb 11y ago
  Stability is not a help with mosquito control? Of course it is. You can dust your dwelling and not have to treat again for a month due to the stability. It certainly is a benefit. Yes, DDT builds up in organisms and can cause reproductive issues in some birds. The point the OP is trying to make is that we as a society decided that bird health is more important than human health. And I'm not sure I understand your Silicon Valley example. The land that Facebook was on was drained and backfilled. No standing water, no mosquitos. What does DDT have to do with it?

glibgil 11y ago

It is never a good idea to have unsafe sex with your partner as soon as they arrive home from a trip. It is is best to let a little time pass for symptoms or conscience to develop.

zepto 11y ago
One way around this is to have them followed by a private investigator when they are away from you.
- miander 11y ago
  I think you misunderstood what he meant... How is a private investigator going to catch him being bitten by an infected mosquito?
  - zepto 11y ago
    The parent mentioned conscience, which speaks directly to my understanding. Separately, the piece mentions that one person in the world is known to become infected through this vector, making the risk absolutely negligible.
  - scrumper 11y ago
    I took it as a joke about questioning the left-behind-at-home spouse's fidelity, quite a good one too.
  - justusthane 11y ago
    I think you actually misunderstood the joke :)
dang 11y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10946398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10946398 and marked it off-topic.

josu 11y ago

It's not only Zika, the Chikungunya [1] virus has also reappeared in Latin America, which is also spread by the same mosquito. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikungunya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikungunya

shas3 11y ago
Chikungunya is a horrible malaise. It is very prevalent in India. While not deadly, it can cripple you for days and also leave lasting damage to joints in older people. Every adult in my family in India has gone through a bout of it. It is a recent phenomenon, viral-arthritis type diseases were rare till chikangunya made an appearance. I dread visiting India because of the widespread prevalence of this disease and dengue.
- josu 11y ago
  It's very prevalent in Mexico too, however it has mainly affected low and middle-low income families, my guess is that due to poor sanitation and the areas where they live (near likes and swamps). What about in India? Because from what I can infer from your comment it seems that is much more widespread over there.
  - shas3 11y ago
    The problem in India is that the poor and the rich don't necessarily live in very different sanitary conditions. In my experience, the situation is likely worse in poorer neighborhoods, but it is still very, very bad in rich neighborhoods. Unlike countries with similar economic development metrics, India is particularly filthy. So much so that, 'Swacch Bharat' aka 'Clean India' is a big effort by the current Government. This study from Johns Hopkins University, for example details how the prevalence mosquito-borne fevers does not follow income/class: www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2015/burden-of-dengue-chikungunya-in-india-far-worse-than-understood.html To quote, " Researchers estimated that on average, 23 percent of those who have not yet been infected become infected by dengue every year, corresponding to roughly 228,000 infections per year in Chennai alone. “This rate of infection is extremely high, almost three times higher than in areas of Brazil and Thailand where transmission was thought to be high,” says Rodríguez-Barraquer. They also found that the rate of infection in Chennai was similar in poor communities as in more affluent neighborhoods.  The research is believed to be the first to systematically measure dengue and chikungunya infection rates in India. “If you don’t understand the extent of the problem, you can’t address it,” she says. "

rafaelm 11y ago

I'm totally terrified by this thing right now because my wife is pregnant. There's tons of mosquitoes here in Venezuela . She already got Haemorrhagic Dengue about 10 months ago. The worst part is that because of the terrible state of the economy here, there's no insect repellent in the stores and no proper Zika test kits in the hospitals. The sanitary situation here is getting worse everyday (constant shortage of food and medicine). Add to that the constant politization of everything, the govt hasn't even issued any infection figures or warnings. I had to ask a friend coming from the US to bring some DEET repellent. But not everyone has the same opportunity.

theklub 11y ago
Man that's terrible. Just curious, why can't you order it online?
- pjc50 11y ago
  Because Amazon is in Brazil, not Venezuela. (Joking aside, Venezuela has a quasi-command economy with foreign exchange controls; this results in a shortage of imported goods and it may be prohibitively expensive to do a personal import)
  - hobs 11y ago
    What about a personal package being sent? If it would help a guy from having his pregnant wife getting some insane fever, I could ship him a box of DEET stuff.
    - rafaelm 11y ago
      There are a lot of forwarding services here that let you buy stuff online, have it sent to a US address and then they send it to you in Venezuela. I actually do some occasional work for one such company. Also, since so many venezuelans are leaving the country, lots of people living in Panama and the US are sending stuff to their friends and family in the country using these companies. The shipping and taxes are expensive sometimes but it's an alternative at least.

dfar1 11y ago

Brazil can't get their mosquitoes under control. They have been struggling to eradicate Dengue (breakbone fever) for years. Health authority is too slow, too unprepared, and lacking budget. The government is corrupt and the people don't seem to care.

forinti 11y ago
"people don't seem to care." That's the real problem from which all others derive.

jcromartie 11y ago

It seems that microcephaly is associated with onset of Zika during the first trimester of pregnancy. Considering the mild nature of the illness, couldn't the virus be its own vaccine? Could a woman proactively contract the virus while postponing pregnancy, in order to thwart it?

hemicyclium 11y ago
I expect the situation is similar to the flu: once you contract a strain, you develop immunity to that specific strain, but as soon as the disease, which is under highly selective pressure to mutate, mutates, you are once again susceptible to the new strain. It might work for a short while, but not a full pregnancy.

epx 11y ago

A grandnephew of my wife was born with microcephaly, likely one of the first victims of Zika virus, when the surge of the birth defect was still not detected by public health. I can just imagine the social cost of that -- how many persons in family will have to dedicate to care, work just to supply money for the necessary medical treatments, and/or losing professional opportunities because of this. I estimate the impact in 10:1.

corybrown 11y ago

This is quite scary. Various countries now telling the entire population to stop having kids. There could be a lost generation effect.

betolink 11y ago

This is getting serious here in southern Mexico, we just had a chikungunya outbreak a year ago and now this. These situations remind me of a talk given at Oscon Data by Steve Yegge about working on the things that matter[0]. Virus are complex and modelling molecular biology requires CS expertise, it's kind of sad that we're normally discussing the new JS frameworks instead of working on the hard(and important)problems. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8

moonchrome 11y ago
>it's kind of sad that we're normally discussing the new JS frameworks instead of working on the hard(and important)problems. What gives you the impression that people contributing to JS frameworks have the potential to meaningfully contribute to "hard problems" in molecular biology ?
- vemv 11y ago
  On the micro level, you're right. On the macro level, the new generations of smart talented folks are choosing CS over other career choices.
  - moonchrome 11y ago
    >the new generations of smart talented folks are choosing CS over other career choices Umm... he is arguing that CS is exactly what people should be focusing because CS (ML/data processing, etc.) applied to existing fields and data could lead to new insights - so more smart people going to CS is a good thing (at least according to Yegge). My point is that CS has practically nothing to do with writing JS frameworks and frankly I doubt that most people doing JS development are the kind of people that could make significant contributions to CS or mentioned sciences - maybe a fraction of the top % - but JS is a low barrier to entry, easy to get simple things done, sufficient to solve real world problems like automating CRUD TPS reports - because someone needs to do that as well. I've had the misfortune of working with that platform - JS is by far the lowest quality ecosystem I've seen* (I never really got into PHP so I can't compare). IMO Yegge makes a stronger point suggesting that data science people are being driven to "catbook" projects instead of "important stuff" - but those people are not your everyday JS developers.

kolanos 11y ago

An illness that I thought was influenza just swept through my household and included pretty severe pink eye / conjunctivitis type symptoms. Are there any other viruses circulating North America that would have such symptoms? I live in the Sierra mountains where mosquitos are rare, so I find this all very interesting/confusing.

McKayDavis 11y ago

I live in Hawaii and last week saw the first confirmed case of Zika virus in the United States in a child born with microcephaly on the Big Island. [1] The mother had recently traveled to Brazil and thankfully neither her nor the baby are infectious -- but, living in the tropics, it seems to be only a matter of time until we see mosquitoes carrying Zika here. [1] http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/31007233/hawaii-health-officials-worried-about-potential-threat-from-zika-virus http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/31007233/hawaii-health-of...