India on alert as Zika virus hits tourism hub of Jaipur

Eye parasite cases on the rise

NEW DELHI, Oct 9, (RTRS): India has sent experts to try to contain an outbreak of the zika virus in the popular tourist destination of Jaipur, capital of the northern state of Rajasthan, with a close watch on pregnant women.

Twenty-two people in the city have tested positive, the health ministry said. There is no vaccine to the virus which can cause severe birth defects in unborn children.

Pregnant women in the area are being monitored by the National Health Mission, a body set up by the government to improve healthcare across the country.

“The situation continues to be monitored regularly,” the ministry said in a statement late on Monday.

The Toronto-based International Association for Medical Assistance to Travellers said it was advising pregnant travellers to postpone trips to the area, part of India’s tourist “golden triangle” of Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, home to the Taj Mahal.

Epidemic

First discovered in 1947, the zika virus reached epidemic proportions in Brazil in 2015, when thousands of babies were born with microcephaly, a brain defect affecting speech and motor function.

It is the third such outbreak in India, with the first in the western city of Ahmedabad in January 2017 and the second in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in July 2017. Both outbreaks were “successfully contained”, the government said.

The latest cases – in the middle of the country’s festival season where many Indians travel, increasing the risk of transmission – come amid a spike in other mosquito-borne diseases, that kill thousands across India each year, according to the World Health Organisation.

The capital Delhi has reported a rise in cases of dengue fever, with 169 reported in the first week of October and taking the total for the year to 650, according to NDTV, citing figures from the South Delhi Municipal Corporation that tracks mosquito-borne diseases.

UK researchers have confirmed an uptick in cases of Acanthamoeba keratitis, an eye infection that most often affects contact lens wearers.

Contact lens users can avoid the severe infection by washing and drying their hands when they handle their contacts, storing the lenses in clean solution daily rather than in water or old solution, and as much as possible, avoiding wearing lenses while swimming or bathing.

“We think the condition is 90 percent preventable if water exposure is avoided and effective lens solution is used properly or disposable contact lenses are used,” said senior study author Dr John Dart of University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Not all lens solutions are effective, and ingredient and risk information isn’t often easily accessible on product packages or manufacturer websites, Dart noted

“The way the solution is formulated can sometimes cause the problem, too, but users can’t find this easily,” Dart told Reuters Health in a phone interview.

Acanthamoeba organisms are present in the air, soil, dust and water. At least half of the population has antibodies to the organisms, indicating they’ve been exposed, the study team writes in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

Acanthamoeba keratitis is still quite rare. Nevertheless, the cystforming amoeba can be difficult to treat, leading to chronic infection that affects contact lens users for years. The most severely affected patients in the UK, for example, required nearly a year of treatment, more than three years of follow-up, dozens of hospital visits and had poor vision after the infection resolved, the study team notes. Some patients needed corneal transplants.

Infections

To see if infections are increasing, Dart and colleagues looked at data on Acanthamoeba cases at Moorfields between 1984 and 2016. The hospital treated 75 percent of cases in southeast England and 35 percent of all UK cases during that period, so it is likely representative of what’s happening across the country.

The researchers also studied surveys completed by contact lens users in Moorfields’ Accident and Emergency Department, including people who had Acanthamoeba keratitis or other eye disorders.

The research team found that the current outbreak started in 2010, when incidence of the condition rose to about 50 cases per year. That represented a threefold increase compared with 2004-2009.

When they looked at factors associated with infection, researchers found that users of contact lens solution containing the ingredient Oxipol – which has since been phased out by its manufacturer – were nearly five times more likely to contract the infection.