LOCAL

History says scary Zika virus will make its way to Georgia

Lee Shearer
lshearer@onlineathens.com
A researcher holds a container with female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes at the Biomedical Sciences Institute in the Sao Paulo's University, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Monday, Jan. 18, 2016. The Aedes aegypti is a vector for transmitting the Zika virus. The Brazilian government announced it will direct funds to a biomedical research center to help develop a vaccine against the Zika virus linked to brain damage in babies. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Federal health authorities have issued travel advisories because of Zika virus, rapidly spreading now in South and Central America.

But it's probably only a matter of time before the dismaying Zika virus makes its way to North America and Georgia.

Doctors think the mosquito-borne Zika virus is linked to an outbreak of birth defects in a region of Brazil where nearly 4,000 babies have been born in the past year with microcephaly - abnormally small heads, which causes brain damage.

More recently, scientists in Brazil and other countries have begun investigating the virus' possible role in a surge in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune condition in which a person's immune system attacks parts of the nervous system, which can cause paralysis and cardiac problems.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control issued and advisory counseling pregnant women to take extra precautions against mosquito bites in Brazil, Mexico, Haiti and several other countries, as well as the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

But judging from the past, little-understood Zika seems a good candidate to reach Georgia and the United States, said University of Georgia entomologist Nancy Hinkle.

"There's a good chance that it will be eventually end up here in North America," Hinkle said.

History is full of instances of mosquito-borne diseases making their way across the globe.

Centuries ago, the slave trade brought yellow fever from Africa to South America; when it expanded its range into tropical and subtropical regions in the New World, it caused outbreaks like those in Savannah in 1820, 1854 and 1876, in which more than 2,700 people died.

More recently, the introduced West Nile virus made its way across the United States after having making its first appearance in New York City in 1999, and now dengue fever and painful chikungunya are moving up from the south.

Scientists believe the carrier for Zika is the Aedes aegypti mosquito, native to Africa but for many years now common in Georgia and many other southern states.

Aedes is also the vector for yellow fever; the mosquito species also spreads two other severe viral infections once rare but now on the rise in North America, dengue and chikungunya

As with other infections, the mosquitoes spread Zika by biting someone already infected, then passing it on to another human when the mosquito seeks another blood meal.

Global warming could play a role in the spread, but globalization may play a bigger role with today's unprecedented movement of people, goods and animals around the world.

Scientists suspect an infected bird imported by a zoo might have been the launching pad for West Nile Virus in North America.

Humanity has also created more favorable conditions for the spread of mosquitoes and the diseases they carry with globalization and today's unprecedented movement of people and goods around the world, Hinkle explained.

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