3 ms·

Beside by mosquito, apparently it can also be transmitted sexually: "In 2009, Brian Foy, a biologist from the Arthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laborator

by 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)

by ptha 11y ago

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

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)