Zika virus is a mosquito-borne flavivirus. Here the word is borne not born. The meaning of borne is “Vector or carrier.” Aedes Mosquitoes are the carriers that transmit the virus from person to person. The virus is entered in the body when the Aedes mosquito bites a person. Virus when enters the body multiplies into thousands of new copies thus spreading it all over the body. Aedes mosquito is responsible for the transmission. When other Aedes mosquitoes bite this person, they also become a vector and transmit the virus onto the other individuals who they bite.
When Virus enters a cell, it injects a single-stranded RNA Strand. It gets translated into Proteins. Then they use our own cellular machinery, which makes more virus copies within a cell. This ultimately led to the bursting of cells releasing such copies of viruses. These copies then infect other cells and multiply even more.
Symptoms:
It severely infects only 20 percent of people (2 out of every 10 infected persons). Most people won’t even get sick. However, those who do get affected severely show these symptoms:
1) Mild fever
2) Muscle pain
3) Red eyes
4) Muscle pain
5) Skin Rash
6) Headache
How it spreads?
1) Areas with a lot of mosquitos can cause the outbreak of this disease.
2) Blood transfusion with an infected person.
3) Unprotected Sexual activities.
4) From Mother to Child during Pregnancy.
Treatment:
No proper treatment for this disease is available yet. Prevention and care is the best thing against this virus as of now.
1) Don’t go to such areas where this virus is already present.
2) Use Mosquito spray to kill mosquitoes.
3) Aedes mosquito is active during the daytime. Therefore, one must follow precautions during this time.
4) Drink more water to prevent dehydration.
5) Take painkillers for the pain.
There are no vaccines for this virus yet. So, precaution is the only way of protection from disease.
Zika virus and Pregnancy:
During the Zika virus outbreak in 2015 in Brazil, it was witnessed that more babies were being born with Microcephaly (Small head) conditions. The cases of Microcephaly increased twenty folds during this time. Thus, health experts feared that this virus in a pregnant woman can cause microcephaly in a baby. Their fear worsened when Microcephaly cases increased twenty times during this virus outbreak. So, whether you like it or not, there is some sort of connection between flavivirus and SMall head disease.
In children, “small head disease” causes low intellect level in children and poor vision for the rest of their life.
Furthermore, Pregnant women infected with this flavivirus can have a miscarriage. Preterm birth is another worry which can create complications for baby’s health.
Previous outbreaks:
The first case of this virus appeared in 1952 in Uganda and Tanzania. Since then, the world has witnessed many outbreaks of this virus. The most prominent ones are:
1) 2007 outbreak in Yap islands.
2) 2013 outbreak in French Polynesia
3) 2015–2016 outbreak in South America and Caribbean.
Recent Shocking finding of Zika virus:
A recent study about the Zika virus has shocked the medical world. Its RNA strand has now been discovered in African Bats. Dr. Anna Fagre has detected this and said this discovery is the first-ever in science. Now, the world is worried that this virus has more hosts than humans and mosquitoes. Moreover, experts think that the coronavirus pandemic occurred when someone in China ate Bat. This makes the discovery even more important for medical experts and health organizations. More and more studies should be conducted on Flavivirus so that the prevention and eradication of this virus can become a reality.
Also Read: Indian Covid variant can create more havoc than any other variant. Check out How!
