The World Health Organization has declared the Zika virus a global threat. At Russian airports, control has already been introduced to prevent the penetration of the disease into the territory of our country. Its outbreak even forced the Indian automaker to rename the model, by coincidence, named after the virus - Zika. About who is threatened by the disease, and what is the role of mosquitoes in this threat.
The situation is spiraling out of control. The World Health Organization is forced to admit that the Zika virus is spreading around the planet faster than the most pessimistic forecasts suggested.
The epidemic has already covered almost all countries in Latin America, Southeast Asia and equatorial Africa. Cases have been reported in tourists in the United States and Europe.
The threat of tropical fever is already being compared to the Ebola epidemic.
“The level of danger is incredibly high. The spread of the virus in many countries has led to the birth of thousands of children with very small heads and brains. There have also been many cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome reported,”said World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chen.
Guillain-Barré syndrome causes muscle weakness to the point of complete paralysis. This complication of Zika fever also develops in adults. But the virus poses the main danger to pregnant women.
Scientists around the world are asking the main question about why the virus, which has been known since 1947, is now spreading at a tremendous speed. According to one of the versions, football players from Africa brought the infection to the Western Hemisphere, who were bitten by mosquito vectors. But there are also supporters of the theory that the pandemic was artificially created in order to disrupt the Summer Olympics in Rio.
According to the British media, the sudden outbreak of Zika fever could be the result of a mistake by scientists.
Promotional video:
Most of the cases - almost one and a half million people - are residents of Brazil. It was there that researchers released three million genetically modified mosquitoes into the biosphere six months ago. They were created in the Oxford laboratory. They were males of the very species that spread the Zika virus and other tropical fevers.
Such mosquitoes carry a gene that prevents their offspring from developing. The second generation dies before reaching the age at which it can carry the virus. But could geneticists have made a mistake? So far, they only have to make excuses.
“In 6 months in Brazil, we have reduced the population of mosquitoes that carry Dengue and Zika fevers by 90 percent. And our approach is much safer than chemical treatments, which are used everywhere,”says Heidin Parry, head of the genetic engineering laboratory.
There are no mosquitoes that carry the virus in our country. But tourists are strongly advised not to visit countries where the epidemic is raging.
“If we are talking about a pregnant woman leaving for such a state, then she should think carefully about whether it is worth doing,” said Oleg Salagai, director of the Department of Public Health and Communications of the RF Ministry of Health.
Virologists also do not exclude the possibility of transmission of the Zika virus from person to person in the first days of infection before the first symptoms appear.
“Some cases of transfer are described. Firstly, with the transfer of blood during blood transfusion, and secondly, during sexual contacts. This rarely happens, but, nevertheless, such cases have been registered. The virus is transmitted from mother to child when she is born,”- said the virologist, professor of the Institute of Clinical Immunology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Chepurnov about the methods of transmission.
Test systems for quick diagnostics have already been developed in Russia. They can detect the Zika virus in human blood in minutes. Test systems are used at border control, where visitors from tropical countries have been greeted with special trepidation since December.
