More Than a Million Moms At Risk of Zika, Study Finds

nbc news ^ | Jul 25 2016 | Maggie Fox

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

As many as 1.65 million women in Latin America could be infected with Zika while pregnant, meaning tens of thousands of pregnancies could be at risk, researchers said Monday.

It's the first real estimate of just how many actual pregnancies are at real risk, based on birth rates in each country and other factors.

Brazil's likely to be the worst affected, the team at the University of Notre Dame and Britain's University of Southampton found. The team calculated the subset of women who get pregnant every year and who go on to have a baby -- many pregnancies end in miscarriage.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

"The central concept behind our approach is that of the 'first-wave' epidemic. Zika and other mosquito-borne viruses have been known to exhibit explosive outbreaks, infecting as much as 75 percent of a population in a single year," the team wrote in their report, published in the journal Nature Microbiology.

"We think these projections may be pretty good for a location where Zika shows up and starts an epidemic, but at the same time we acknowledge that due simply to random chance and the fact that some places are relatively isolated and sparsely populated, the virus won't make it to every single corner of the continent," Notre Dame's Alex Perkins said in a statement.

Zika's known to cause a range of birth defects, from brain damage that leads to an unusually small head, called microcephaly, to more subtle nerve, organ and limb defects.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

INFECTIOUS DISEASE PING

ZIKA - The first Wave

[glock rocks]

Well, at least the condors are safe!

[thesligoduffyflynns]

condors, condoms ........condor condoms? skeeter condoms?\\

thanks for entertaining my humour but this shite has to go-

but for now Prince Philip is still alive-& as he said long ago
coming back as a deadly virus.

Well, he is still alive

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Prince_Philip,_Duke_of_Edinburgh

[Vaquero]

DDT. Lots of it. 100% safe for humans. Look it up.

[Romans Nine]

Every year the CDC and WHO comes out with some new scare that is going to infect the world.

I am the only one that notices this?

Hmmmmm let me think why would they do that?

[grania]

This is an incredibly hot summer in the US. Will that enable Zika to take hold in large swaths of the US?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Zika is just another manufactured crisis for the Lefties to not let go to waste.

http://www.caribbean360.com/news/no-connection-zika-microcephaly-new-study-claims

[trisham]

Wow.

[bgill]

Wet bathroom floors are a greater risk to not only pg women but to all humans and pets.

[LadyDoc]

So far it seems only 1 percent have handicapped babies.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

LadyDoc :" So far it seems only 1 percent have handicapped babies."

I don't have recent sources to verify your stated percentage about newborns; some handicaps show up later.
There are other nervous system developmental issues other than microcephaly to consider; issues that occur after birth, and as the child develops.
Right now , too little is known about long term effects of Zika ;
prior to two years ago, microcephaly was an unknown after-effect of Zika as found in Africa in 1947.
There is still much more to learn about Zika, and we, and the CDC, learn more as time goes on .

Personally, while not a trained virologist,I believe that microcephaly is limited to the Brazilian variant of Zika
after it was affected by environmental exposure to various herbicides and insecticides used in agricultural Brazil.
Viri are known to mutate quickly, due to their simple RNA structure, and thus are quickly responsive to environmental factors.
I believe that this is the case with microcephaly, which I believe will be attributed to the Brazilian variant.
Can you list your source for " 1 percent have handicapped babies " ?

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

grania :" This is an incredibly hot summer in the US.
Will that enable Zika to take hold in large swaths of the US?"

I tend to think that it will not spread as fast as many think due to the dry spring, and hot temperatures that will evaporate breeding pools of water.
Your best protection is screens on all your windows if staying indoors.
When outdoors during daytime , use repellent such as 30% DEET; there are other natural repellents as well, recommended by Consumers Report.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

E. Pluribus Unum :" www.caribbean360.com/news/no-connection-zika-microcephaly-new-study-claims

Thank you for that reference !
Please note that reference website encourages tourism in the Carribbean area, so the information might be biased .
However, it does include science and statistics from New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Here is the money quote from the article :
"NECSI has consequently urged experts to reassess the microcephaly cases in Brazil
for the possibility that a pesticide used to kill mosquitoes could be responsible for the birth defects in the nation."
NECSI has consequently urged experts to reassess the microcephaly cases in Brazil for the possibility that a pesticide used to kill mosquitoes could be responsible for the birth defects in the nation.
NECSI emphasized the importance of reevaluating the Zika cases in Brazil since the pesticide pyriproxyfen is known to cause microcephaly as it cross-reacts with retinoic acid.
Pyriproxyfen is commonly placed in drinking water in some parts of the country to kill mosquito larvae carrying the Zika virus."

This would explain the microcephaly in Brazil
but not the Zika microcephaly elsewhere in the Caribbean Islands .
Or is that a statistical aberration ?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Maybe the Caribbean tourist institute is biased, but so are “research” institutions that grub for government grant money.

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

E. Pluribus Unum :" Maybe the Caribbean tourist institute is biased, but so are “research” institutions that grub for government grant money."

True that !
But more importantly, I appreciate all that you bring to the table for discussion.
Yes , there is money and funding involved, and tourism dollars too that the Caribbean Islands depend on
but more and more is learned each and every day about Zika.
For Example : the mosquito which transmits Zika is found (confirmed) as far North as Washington D.C.
That Zika can be transmitted both by homosexual and heterosexual behavior.
That the Zika virus can live in excess of 90 days within the male gonads
That the Brazilian Zika virus may be a mutant variant of the original Zika found in Africa in 1947.
The the Zika virus found in Columbia S.A., may be statistically insignificant to microcephaly, when compared to Brazilian Zika.
Then it follows that microcephaly would occur only in Brazil, and folks who travel to Brazil, and that is NOT the case.(ie: Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico , etc.)

[LadyDoc]

the NEJM reported few cases in Colombia, few cases after an outbreak in Micronesia, and the 3000 cases in Brazil sounds like a lot but were still a small percentage of infected women.

and yes, there is a question if the high rate in Brazil was from pesticides being misused, or if it was a new strain.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/05/25/for-zika-infected-pregnancies-microcephaly-risk-may-be-as-high-as-13-percent/

[LadyDoc]

I should note that here in the Philippines, the public health docs are planning to test our athletes on their return.

we already have dengue so don’t need a new disease.

[GOPJ]

Trump will take care of this situation... he’s not going to allow for that much pain and anguish in order to save a few birds...