Zika Virus Outbreak Prompts CDC To Expand Travel Advisory (washingtonpost.com)

turkeydance writes: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is asking pregnant women to avoid 22 countries that have seen outbreaks of the Zika virus. That's up eight from just yesterday. Disturbingly, the mosquito-borne virus, which may be causing abnormally small heads in newborns, has also been linked to yet another debilitating disease. The Zika virus has been spreading rapidly over the past several months, most prominently in Brazil. Its spread has been associated with a dramatic increase in microcephaly, a rare condition in which babies are born with abnormally small heads.

Comments

"Yet another debilitating disease"

[Nemyst]

... which isn't mentioned in the summary. It's apparently the Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Re:"Yet another debilitating disease"

[hjf]

I'm from the affected area. North-east Argentina, near Paraguay. There have been hundreds of cases of Dengue Fever in the past week. All of this is happening because of the floodings, caused by excessive rainfall by El Niño. Temperatures have been extremely high too (37C at my city today).

Re:Aren't all babies...

[germansausage]

No. The little bastards have abnormally large heads.
 
Signed
 
Mothers Everywhere

Re:The thing I don't understand is why now?

[Yaztromo]

But why aren't we seeing the same thing in Africa or Asia? It's not like the Zika virus in Brazil has had thousands of years to mutate into a version that causes microcephaly, but not the original strain in Africa and Southeast Asia. It's the same virus.

First off, it doesn't take a thousand years for a virus to mutate. Influenza mutates on a yearly basis, for example. And as a general rule, any organism that finds itself in a different environment faces different selective pressures, which may influence the mutation rate, or at the very least, the likelihood of a mutation being more fit for the environment than the pre-mutated strain.

If the cause were due to chemicals, you should see an equal number of non-Zika infected mothers giving birth to children with microcephaly. That doesn't seem to be happening from what I've read. There is no data pointing towards chemicals being involved in any manner. Obviously more diagnosis and testing is needed -- as yet we don't know whether or not Zika has mutated in South America, how the virus is passing the placental barrier, or the exact action which is causing the microcephaly once infected. Wild guesses won't get us closer to a solution to these outstanding questions.

Yaz