Essential Facts About the Zika Virus
For most people, the Zika virus causes only a brief, mild flu-like illness.
But in pregnant women it has been linked to an alarming increase in the rate of the birth defect known as microcephaly — a debilitatingly small head and brain size.
Here are the facts about the Zika virus:
1. The Zika virus is carried by mosquitoes and people, but spread by mosquitoes.
• Zika is an RNA virus related to West Nile, yellow fever, and dengue viruses, and caused by the bite of the Aedes mosquito.
• While you probably can’t give the Zika virus directly to someone else, a mosquito can give it to you and then another mosquito could get it from you — and that second mosquito could pass it on to others.
2.Symptoms of Zika virus infection are usually mild.
Eighty percent of people who become infected never have symptoms.
In those who do, the most common Zika virus symptoms are fever and rash;
it can also cause muscle and joint pain, headache, pain behind the eyes, and conjunctivitis (itchy, red eyes), according to the World Health Organization (WHO)..
No effective treatment is available for Zika infection, but over-the-counter fever or pain medication can be helpful for symptom relief.
3. Unborn babies are most at risk from Zika virus complications.
• When pregnant women are infected with Zika, the unborn child is at risk,
• illness when it strikes women who are pregnant, and it’s producing a horrific effect of microcephaly,”
• Microcephaly may cause mental retardation, as well as delays in speech, movement, and growth.
4. There's no vaccine to protect against the Zika virus.
5. Zika began in Africa and spread rapidly.
• The virus, originally named ZIKV, was first discovered in 1947 in a rhesus macaque in the Zika forest in Uganda. Researchers there found that it lived in mosquitoes, and they learned through experimentation that it could also infect mice.
6. Zika has reached Puerto Rico’s mosquitoes and may keep traveling north.
“Puerto Rico has reported the first locally-acquired Zika virus case in the United States,” says Benjamin Haynes, a CDC spokesperson. The case was reported in December 2015.
7. All U.S. cases of the Zika virus disease are travel-related.
For most people, the Zika virus causes only a brief, mild flu-like illness.
But in pregnant women it has been linked to an alarming increase in the rate of the birth defect known as microcephaly — a debilitatingly small head and brain size.
Here are the facts about the Zika virus:
1. The Zika virus is carried by mosquitoes and people, but spread by mosquitoes.
• Zika is an RNA virus related to West Nile, yellow fever, and dengue viruses, and caused by the bite of the Aedes mosquito.
• While you probably can’t give the Zika virus directly to someone else, a mosquito can give it to you and then another mosquito could get it from you — and that second mosquito could pass it on to others.
2.Symptoms of Zika virus infection are usually mild.
Eighty percent of people who become infected never have symptoms.
In those who do, the most common Zika virus symptoms are fever and rash;
it can also cause muscle and joint pain, headache, pain behind the eyes, and conjunctivitis (itchy, red eyes), according to the World Health Organization (WHO)..
No effective treatment is available for Zika infection, but over-the-counter fever or pain medication can be helpful for symptom relief.
• When pregnant women are infected with Zika, the unborn child is at risk,
• illness when it strikes women who are pregnant, and it’s producing a horrific effect of microcephaly,”
• Microcephaly may cause mental retardation, as well as delays in speech, movement, and growth.
4. There's no vaccine to protect against the Zika virus.
5. Zika began in Africa and spread rapidly.
• The virus, originally named ZIKV, was first discovered in 1947 in a rhesus macaque in the Zika forest in Uganda. Researchers there found that it lived in mosquitoes, and they learned through experimentation that it could also infect mice.
6. Zika has reached Puerto Rico’s mosquitoes and may keep traveling north.
“Puerto Rico has reported the first locally-acquired Zika virus case in the United States,” says Benjamin Haynes, a CDC spokesperson. The case was reported in December 2015.
7. All U.S. cases of the Zika virus disease are travel-related.
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