The ZIKA Outbreak

By Satyam Pathak

Updated: 3 Apr

WHO has acknowledged that the outburst of Zika and congenital malformations and neurological disorders in the body of newborns understood to be connected to the virus is a worldwide public emergency pertaining to health. Since the present outbreak began in Brazil last year, nearly 1.5 million of population have been reported affected. As of now, 4,180 suspected cases of microcephaly — a deformation in foetus due to which babies are born with abnormally small heads — had been recorded in Brazil itself. There have also been cases related to Guillain-Barré syndrome, which is a state in which the immune system of body dominates the nervous system, and is believed to result in paralysis sometimes. 

A fundamental connection between Zika virus and Microcephaly is yet to be recognized, but it is strongly alleged as the said virus has been found in the placenta and amniotic fluid of infected mothers and also in the brains of foetuses and newborn babies. As the virus multiplies in region of Latin America and the Caribbean, it has become knotty to assess the right degree of the outbreak since the infectivity remains asymptomatic in around 80 per cent of cases.

 The Zika virus has the likelihood to multiply wherever the Aedesaegypti mosquito, that pass on the infection, is discovered and where people have deficiency of natural immunity against it.  As in the case of the recent epidemic of Ebola, no precise cure or vaccination is presently accessible for the Zika virus; there are no swift and dependable investigative tests either.