Britons infected by Zika virus
Women advised to avoid pregnancy in several countries of Latin America and travel warnings over popular Caribbean tourism destinations
THREE Britons have been infected with Zika virus, Public Health England (PHE) has confirmed, as health officials warn pregnant women not to travel to where the disease has been reported.
The Zika virus, which can lead to children being born disabled, is rapidly spreading through south America and the Caribbean. Yesterday, US authorities warned pregnant women against travelling to Barbados.
The British travellers picked up the disease through mosquito bites while travelling in Colombia, Suriname and Guyana and are now back in the UK.
The disease can only be passed on through mosquito bites and is not contagious, with symptoms lasting up to one week. PHE could not confirm whether any of the victims were pregnant.
Zika was first discovered in Africa in the Forties but the first outbreak outside of Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands only occurred last May with a case in Brazil.
ALARM was growing internationally yesterday over the rapid spread of the Zika virus which has been linked with surging birth defects in the Americas.
Governments in the region told women to delay pregnancies and health authorities outside it extended travel warnings to Caribbean tourist hotspots.
El Salvador advised women to avoid becoming pregnant for the next two years due to the risk of microcephaly, a congenital brain and skull deformity that causes babies to be born with small heads. It can kill or leave them severely disabled.
Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Brazil have all issued warnings against pregnancies for the duration of the epidemic. In Brazil, where thousands of microcephaly cases have been reported, doctors warned that the mosquito-borne disease could also be causing cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, which attacks the nervous system and can lead to fatal paralysis.
Health authorities around the world are on alert over the Zika virus, which has swept through the Americas since it was first identified outside of Africa on Easter Island in 2014.
Cases have been detected in Hawaii and on the US mainland among individuals who have visited affected areas. Yesterday, the British government reported that three British travellers to Colombia, Suriname and Guyana had contracted the virus. It is not known whether they have returned to Britain.
The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) extended warnings against travel by pregnant women to eight new countries, including the Caribbean destinations of Barbados and Saint Martin and Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa, bringing the total to 22.
The latest tests in Brazil have shown “increasingly strong evidence” of a link between the virus and fetal brain damage, CDC said.
The British Department of Health has also advised pregnant women to avoid travel to affected areas. The National Travel Health Network and Centre said they should “reconsider travel to areas where Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreaks are currently reported as further evidence for a possible link between ZIKV infection and congenital malformations emerges”. The virus, carried by the Aedes ae
gypti mosquito, often only causes mild symptoms, with a slight fever of under 38.5C, a rash and a headache, lasting up to a week. Painkillers and drugs to alleviate the fever are normally prescribed. There is no vaccine, and scientists have warned that developing one could take five years or more.
Brazil declared a public health emergency in November after doctors noticed a huge rise in babies born with microcephaly. More than 4,000 cases were recorded last year compared with 147 in 2014. Up to 1.5 million people in the country, which hosts the Olympics this summer, are estimated to have contracted the virus.
Researchers believe it may have arrived in the country during the 2014 football World Cup, carried by visitors from French Polynesia, where an outbreak had just occurred.
“The virus found the perfect conditions in Brazil: a very efficient vector that loves human blood, millions of susceptible victims with no antibodies, ideal climate, and lots of places to breed,” said Ricardo Lourenco, who studies tropical infectious diseases at Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Institute.
There have been reports of cases of Zika in Florida, Illinois and Texas in returning travellers. Last week, Hawaii health officials reported the first case of microcephaly linked to the Zika virus in a baby which contracted the disease
in utero.
The mother is understood to have spent time in Brazil in the early part of her pregnancy last year. On Thursday, Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff appealed to the public to avoid giving mosquitos breeding sites by not leaving standing water to go stagnant.
Brazil’s health ministry has also spent 6 million reals (£1 million) on 500,000 Zika testing kits to help improve detection.
But doctors said the only way to fight the virus was to tackle carriers of the disease themselves.
“A new vaccine would be very difficult to do quickly,” said Dr Kleber Luz, an infectologist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in one of the worst-affected cities, Natal.
But he warned that the incidence of Zika had probably not reached its peak in Brazil. “This year, we will have a surge in the disease, you could say, another wave of Zika,” he added.