Miami High School Shut Down after Zika Outbreak Infects 47 Students

[woz75]

and lawmakers won't do a damn thing until it happens to their family - sad

A spokesperson for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a statement that said all 47 Miami-Dade students suspected to be infected with the Zika virus have been quarantined inside their homes until further testing is performed.

READ MORE AT: Miami High School Shut Down after Zika Outbreak Infects 47 Students

 

[Two Thumbs]

didn't obama let it in?

and it was racist of us to not want it in?


it's ok, b/c they are probably all white

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

and lawmakers won't do a damn thing until it happens to their family - sad

A spokesperson for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a statement that said all 47 Miami-Dade students suspected to be infected with the Zika virus have been quarantined inside their homes until further testing is performed.

READ MORE AT: Miami High School Shut Down after Zika Outbreak Infects 47 Students

Damn lawmakers! Tell you what, if they don't start controlling mother nature I'll vote against them next time

 

[woz75]

mother nature? lol ok - I'm sure mother nature can also cure cancer ---who needs chemo? just get some fresh air!

 

[waltky]

Zika Continues to be Global Public Health Emergency...

Zika Virus Can Live in Eyes and, Possibly, Tears
September 07, 2016 - The Zika virus can live in the eyes, and evidence of the virus has been found in the tears of animals. Scientists say it is not known whether the infection can be spread in humans through tears.

About one-third of babies born with the Zika virus have inflammation of the eyes, sometimes rendering them blind. In adults, Zika has been shown to cause eye infections such as uveitis and conjunctivitis in up to 15 percent of people who are symptomatic. Researchers studied the eyes of a mouse model of Zika, and discovered that infection of the eye is widespread, according to Michael Diamond, a professor of molecular microbiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. "There were many different parts of the eye — the cornea, the iris, the retina. All of those seemed to have virus associated with them, in particular cells. And, indeed, the fluid associated with the eye, as well," he reported.

Diamond and his colleagues found the viral RNA was still present in mouse tears 28 days after scientists infected them with Zika. When investigators tried to infect a group of rodents that did not have Zika with the tears of infected mice, they were unable to do so. However, that does not mean human tears are not infectious. Scientists won't know for certain until human tears are studied, Diamond said. His team is working with clinicians in Latin America, Puerto Rico and Florida who are treating Zika patients to get samples of human tears for testing. "Only after doing that will we begin to get a handle as to whether the tears are carrying enough infectious virus to transmit it, or whether there's very small amounts and they're not really transmissible," Diamond said. However, he added, testing bodily fluids — including tears — could be a simple and painless way to diagnose Zika virus.

Mosquitoes collected in a trap are examined at the Harris County Mosquito Control lab in Houston, Texas​

Investigators are looking for alternative routes of infection, through bodily fluids, because the mosquito-borne virus is spreading more quickly than epidemiologists predicted. It's known that a number of bodily fluids, including semen and saliva, can harbor the virus. Researchers are also investigating whether Zika can be transmitted by vaginal fluid. The speed of disease transmission is often tracked by the amount of virus contained in the blood. Compared to other mosquito-borne illnesses, such as dengue fever, Diamond said there is relatively little Zika virus in human blood for a mosquito to transmit from person to person through a bite.

The eyes, Diamond said, are considered an "immune-privileged site," meaning the immune system is less active there, so as not to accidently damage delicate eye tissue. The fact that the eyes act as a reservoir for Zika, long after the infection has cleared the rest of the body, could have implications for the natural history of the disease, especially if it's discovered that transmission is possible through human tears. The finding that eyes harbor the virus — published in the journal Cell Reports — could also have implications for eye tissue transplants from deceased donors to those whose eyesight is impaired.

Zika Virus Can Live in Eyes and, Possibly, Tears

See also:

WHO: Zika Virus Continues to be Global Public Health Emergency
September 02, 2016 — A World Health Organization emergency committee reports the threat of the Zika virus and its link with microcephaly or brain abnormalities in newborn babies, and other neurological disorders, remains high.

The committee said Zika infections constitute a public health emergency of international concern. The committee warned the Zika virus is continuing to spread geographically. New outbreaks continue to be identified, most recently in Guinea Bissau and Singapore. It said nations must remain vigilant and take measures to contain the disease. Since the World Health Organization declared Zika a global health emergency on February 1, the committee said it has learned a lot about the virus and its impact. Additionally, the committee said it has taught people how to control the virus and protect themselves from mosquito bites.

Nurses set up a mosquito tent over a hospital bed, as part of a precautionary protocol for patients who are infected by Zika at Farrer Park Hospital in Singapore​

WHO executive director of outbreaks and health emergencies Peter Salama said health workers were trained on how to deal with the consequences of infection, helping women manage their pregnancies and dealing with a newborn baby with a brain disorder. "Working with the scientific community, we have learned that Zika has consequences with infants beyond microcephaly to a range of complications from hearing and eyesight complications to seizures," he said. "And we now have called these the Zika Congenital Syndrome. Many entities, both public and private, are working on the development of diagnostic tests and vaccines.”

Three governments — Brazil, the United States, and Singapore — provided information on microcephaly, Guillain-Barre Syndrome and other neurological disorders. Brazil reported that none of the athletes or people who attended the Olympics was infected with Zika and said the upcoming Paralympics also would be safe. The World Health Organization reaffirmed its previous advice that there should not be any restrictions on travel or trade with countries where Zika is being transmitted.

WHO: Zika Virus Continues to be Global Public Health Emergency

 

[waltky]

Health experts worried a "large epidemic" is looming...

Doctors say Haiti Ripe for Large Zika Outbreak, Virus Under-reported
September 08, 2016 — Posters warning of the dangers of Zika only reached Haiti's health ministry in August, six months after the country reported an outbreak, in one example of delayed prevention efforts that have health experts worried a "large epidemic" is looming.

Gabriel Thimothe, a senior health ministry official, said the public service posters would be distributed to hospitals and airports shortly, but that health funding had been cut this year and foreign aid was sparse to fight the mosquito-borne virus that can cause severe birth defects. Zika infections in pregnant women have been shown to cause microcephaly - a defect in which babies' heads and brains are undersized - as well as other brain abnormalities. Widespread fumigation that has limited the virus' spread in other Caribbean nations such as Cuba only began in Haiti last month. Publicity campaigns have been all but invisible and hospital workers were on strike for much of the year. "We're expecting a large epidemic but we don't know when it will occur," said Jean-Luc Poncelet, the World Health Organization's representative in Haiti. "There is under-reporting."

Workers of the Ministry of Public Health and Population fumigate a street during a campaign against mosquito breeding to prevent Zika in Port-au-Prince, Haiti​

Such an epidemic could severely strain Haiti's fragile healthcare system, battered by an earthquake in 2010 that killed 300,000, and still struggling with a cholera epidemic that has sickened nearly 800,000 people. WHO data show 5,000 suspected cases have been reported in more prosperous neighbor Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and has a similar population and climate. Haiti by contrast, has reported 3,000 suspected cases, according to numbers shared by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That makes Haiti's Zika infection rate about 30 per 100,000 people, compared to 82 per 100,000 in Brazil, where the connection between Zika and microcephaly was first detected, and 50 per 100,000 in Dominican Republic The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last fall in Brazil, which has since confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly.

Rainy Season

In the Dominican Republic there were spikes in infections in March and May, broadly coinciding with rainy seasons on both sides of the island, a time when mosquitoes and diseases they carry normally flourish. In Haiti, the number of cases reported each week generally dropped from February through the rains. A long strike by medical residents at most public hospitals coincided with that decline, raising the question of whether there were fewer infections or a lack of health workers available to register cases. A Zika task force, which includes the government and non-governmental organizations, was formed in May, Thimothe said. Several U.S. health officials in Haiti told Reuters that the United States provided $3 million in August to combat Zika in the country, money that was initially intended to be deployed against Ebola in West Africa. Thimothe said the impact of an explosion of microcephaly cases would be devastating, but denied the condition was more widespread than thought, even though many Haitian women give birth at home rather than in clinics.

A woman is reflected in a puddle on a street in Port-au-Prince, Haiti​

His position is supported by WHO data through June, which did not show an uptick in microcephaly or Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder that can cause temporary paralysis and has also been linked to Zika. But Louise Ivers, the senior health and policy advisor for Partners in Health, which along with Haitian organization Zanmi Lasante runs a hospital in the central town of Mirebalais, said she had seen at least 12 cases this year of Guillain-Barre, normally a rare condition. The same hospital registered two microcephaly cases, including one confirmed to be linked to Zika, this summer. "Maybe we are too late for prevention. Maybe we just have to manage the consequences," Ivers said. "This could just be the tip of the iceberg."

Doctors say Haiti Ripe for Large Zika Outbreak, Virus Under-reported

 

[waltky]

Zika Spreads to Larger Miami Beach area...

CDC: Zika Virus Spreads to Larger Area in Miami Beach
September 19, 2016 | The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Florida Department of Health (DOH) have expanded their “aggressive mosquito control measures” due to the spread of the Zika virus into a larger area in Miami Beach.

CDC released a statement on Saturday that “there is active mosquito-borne spread of Zika virus in a larger section of Miami Beach than was previously identified.” The DOH confirmed that the transmission area of the virus has expanded from 8th Street to 63rd Street in Miami Beach. “At this time, the total area where active transmission of the Zika virus is believed to be occurring is around 4.5 square miles,” according to the CDC. “Despite aggressive mosquito control measures, active mosquito-borne transmission may occur in this area for some time.”

Part of the CDC’s and DOH’s efforts to contain the virus have included the aerial spraying of naled, the pesticide used to kill adult mosquitoes. But Miami residents and environmentalist have taken to the streets to protest the use of the pesticide, citing fear of unknown long-term health effects that it could have on residents. A proposed resolution by Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Grieco to enact a two-week moratorium on the aerial spraying was unsuccessful.

The DOH has identified five people in the newly expanded area that have exhibited symptoms of the virus, bringing the total number of non-travel cases of Zika in Miami Beach to 35. As of September 14, the CDC says Florida has had 596 cases of travel-associated cases and 43 locally acquired cases.

CDC: Zika Virus Spreads to Larger Area in Miami Beach

 

[waltky]

Same could happen with the bird flu...

Once harmless, the Zika virus became lethal after a single genetic mutation took hold around 2013
Sept. 28,`17 - When the Zika virus was first isolated from a Ugandan forest monkey in 1947 and found in mildly ill humans a few years later, it was hardly worth a mention in the annals of human disease. What a difference a mutation can make.

In a new round of genetic sleuthing, Chinese researchers have pinpointed the single genetic change that has made the Zika virus a fearsome plague to pregnant women and their babies across the Americas, responsible for thousands of cases of microcephaly and other grievous brain abnormalities that sometimes result in death. The Chinese researchers also came close to pinpointing the time at which the Zika virus graduated from unwelcome pest status to an international scourge. That change, they surmised, occurred around May 2013, a few months before the start of a two-year outbreak in French Polynesia and three other Pacific islands. By March 2015, the Zika virus had arrived in Brazil and was circulating widely there. As of last week, it had caused microcephaly and other grievous brain abnormalities in at least 3,589 babies born to women infected during pregnancy, including 2,952 in Brazil. The findings were reported Thursday in the journal Science.

As Zika hopscotched across the world, borne by soccer players and other world travelers, its genetic blueprint — RNA — underwent a number of changes. The new research underscores how that entirely normal process of genetic “drift” can, at any moment, change the trajectory of human history. Genetic mutations picked up along its journey can disarm a virus as a threat to humans. Or, they can equip it with virulent new powers to sicken. Often, these mutations do nothing at all. The recorded history of the Zika virus posed a mystery for modern-day public health researchers and officials. Upon entering a human body, had the long-unheralded flavivirus always had the power to attack any developing brain tissue inside its human host and wreak a special kind of havoc? Had that destructive power simply not been picked up because previous outbreaks were too small, or included too few pregnant women?

A physical therapist treats a Brazilian child who has microcephaly as a result of the Zika virus. A new study shows that a single mutation in the genome of the virus transformed the once-harmless Zika into a lethal public health threat.​

Or had the Zika virus acquired an ominous mutation before hitting the Americas? To find out, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences tested a collection of Zika virus samples taken over time to see how their genetic structure had changed. Comparing strains harvested in 2015 with one collected in Cambodia in 2010, they identified seven sites where the virus’s RNA had changed. Each change altered Zika’s surface protein by just one feature — a single amino acid. Team members created cloned cells bearing each of those genetic alterations and used the resulting strains to infect fetal and newborn mice. The researchers suspected they had their culprit when a cloned Zika strain bearing a mutation at position S139N of the virus’s RNA caused “strikingly” greater destruction in the brain cells of newborn mice, whose neural development mimics that of human babies during the second trimester.

Then they infected human neural progenitor cells — the forerunners of mature human brain cells — with the Zika strain bearing that single mutation. Compared to the 2010 Zika strain, the mutated version grew and multiplied more prolifically, becoming a ruthless killer of brain cells. The researchers had found their mutation. “The fact that this change in behavior can be almost wholly attributed to a single amino acid change in one of the virus’ surface proteins is remarkable,” said Jonathan Ball, a molecular virologist at the University of Nottingham who has probed genetic shifts in the Ebola virus. “This data, as well as evidence from other viruses like Ebola, shows us that the smallest of genetic changes can have a major impact on virus behavior,” Ball added. The Zika virus’s penchant for attacking developing brain tissue has come into increasing focus in recent research.

Earlier this month, a team of U.S. researchers publishing in the Journal of Experimental Medicine found that Zika may spare normal adult brain tissue, even as it seeks and destroys the primitive cells which, in a fetus, give rise to the brain’s diversity of cells. The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has supported much of the research that has characterized the Zika virus, though not the genetic research out this week. NIAID’s director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, called the new report a “very elegant molecular study.” The findings from China underscore the importance of tracking not just a virus’s journey across a human landscape, but also the molecular changes it undergoes along the way, he said. “This adds insight into our understanding of the world of viruses,” Fauci said.

Once harmless, the Zika virus became lethal after a single genetic mutation took hold around 2013