The Shenandoah Valley seems a world away from where folks need to worry about Zika, but there have been a handful of reported cases in the area, all attributed to international travel.
“We have gotten a lot of calls with concerns,” said Dr. Laura Kornegay, the director of the Central Shenandoah Health District, whose region stretches from Rockbridge County to Rockingham County and also includes a swath of the Alleghany Highlands.
Kornegay and district epidemiologist Jonathan Falk joined us on Viewpoints on WVPT this week to update viewers on what they need to know about Zika.
The latest: the Virginia Department of Health has reported 60 cases to the CDC as of Thursday morning, with seven coming from the Northwest District.
Nationwide, there were 1,825 cases reported to the CDC as of Aug. 3, the vast majority of those attributed to international travel, with just six cases being of local origin, all in Miami, Fla.
The CDC reports that 80 percent of people who contract Zika won’t actually experience any ill effects, with those who do dealing with minor issues with fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes.
Which might make you think, why all the headlines on Zika, right? The headlines are related to the impact of Zika on pregnant women and their fetuses.
Zika has been linked to microcephaly, a severe brain defect in infants, with more than 1,700 active cases and growing in Brazil, where Zika is considered to be endemic.
With more than half the U.S. home to the Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that are known to transmit Zika, it’s little wonder why health departments across the country are mobilizing in the event that the virus spreads to the States.
“We’ve tried to reach out particularly to the ob-gyn community and make them aware of messaging to give their patients. One of our main concerns is for pregnant women, and even women who are considering pregnancy,” Kornegay said.
The bottom line there: “At this point, the CDC says that if you’re considering conception, and you’ve been to a Zika-endemic area, you should probably wait about eight weeks before considering a pregnancy,” said Kornegay, and there’s a message for men as well.
“For men who are considering pregnancy with their partner, if they haven’t had any symptoms of Zika, but have been to a Zika-endemic country, again, waiting eight weeks to consider conceiving. Zika can last a lot longer in semen that it can in blood, so if men develop Zika virus, the CDC recommends waiting about six months before considering conception with their partner,” Kornegay said.
So there’s the lowdown. If you’re thinking of starting or adding to your family, you need to take notice, particularly if you are traveling south of the border.
One important caveat here: we don’t know what we don’t know about Zika.
“In just the last few months, we’ve learned new things about the virus. We confirmed just a few months ago that sexual transmission was possible from males to females. A month or two ago, there was concern in New York for transmission from females to males. There’s a lot that we don’t know about how many pregnancies may be affected by Zika,” Kornegay said.
Congress, in election mode, decided to punt on a push from President Obama to approve emergency funds for additional Zika research, including research toward the development of a Zika vaccine, which may or may not be effective anyway, according to Falk.
“For a Zika virus vaccine, that may be something that’s fine and could potentially work in a place like the U.S., but in areas that are actually endemic to a different virus called Dengue virus, there are potentially problems with having someone have immunity to Zika virus,” Falk said. “Because with Dengue virus, there’s a sort of first type of infection, and then a secondary, more severe infection that can potentially happen. So that would be a question. Would that be a risk for someone who is in a Dengue-endemic area. If they get the Zika virus vaccine, and then they get exposed to the Dengue virus for the first time, are we causing more severe illness of Dengue virus because they had the Zika virus vaccine?”
That’s one key unknown. Another: whether Zika will be able to mutate and strengthen over time.
“That’s something that is always a concern when you have these new and emerging diseases, because they will potentially adapt to the populations that they’re infecting,” Falk said. “When West Nile Virus came on the scene in 1999 into the early 2000s, that was something that came in through New York and swept through the entire U.S. We haven’t seen that with dengue or chikungunya viruses, and we’re not seeing it so far with Zika, but that is obviously a big concern, because just like in Brazil, if it becomes established, and starts moving through the U.S., we don’t know exactly how far it will be able to do that, and what kind of impact that will have on the healthcare system, if we start seeing cases like we have been in some of the other countries.”
What we don’t know about Zika: a lot. What we do know: it can cause severe birth defects in newborns. We also know how to prevent the spread of Zika.
“Things you can do to prevent mosquito bites would be wearing EPA-approved repellants, wearing long sleeves, long pants, light colors. Keeping mosquitoes out of your home, using screening, keeping doors closed. The Aedes mosquitoes that are vectors for Zika virus are daytime biters, although they can bite at night, but daytime is their most prevalent time for biting. So trying to avoid being out, and if you’re out, just being protected,” Kornegay said.
Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are “container breeders,” Kornegay said, meaning they don’t breed in ponds or puddles, but instead breed in “plastic buckets, birdbaths, things that you may have around your house.”
“Generally what we recommend is just policing your property, and tipping, tossing and covering about once a week. If you have a birdbath that accumulates water, trying to tip that out or wash it out once a week. You can even go to the hardware store and get mosquito repellants that you can put in standing water to try to get the mosquito-breeding population down. Those are things you can do to protect both yourself and your property,” Kornegay said.
Take those steps, be cognizant of Zika if you’re traveling south of the border, and you should be OK.
More information on Zika
- Virginia Department of Health: www.vdh.virginia.gov
- Centers for Disease Control & Prevention: www.cdc.gov
- Central Shenandoah Health District on Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheHealthDepartment
Story by Chris Graham
Share
Contributors
