[dohboi]

http://grist.org/article/climate-dystop ... ng-babies/

Climate dystopia is here: Zika virus prompts calls for women to stop having babies

And the great unwashed insouciant masses rise up and scream: "I DON'T GIVE A FXXKING RAT'S XSS ABOUT ANYONE BUT ME, SO JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT AND GO SOD OFF!"

[dohboi]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... m-abroad1/

Zika Virus Threatens U.S. from Abroad

Exclusive: An interactive map, based on data from 50 state health departments, details how the mosquito-borne disease made its way to America in travelers’ bloodstreams

(Before anyone jumps in to point out that there are other threats to Americans (as if anyone doesn't know that), I will just point out that, yes, I know the stats on car accidents, heart attacks, cancer, drug overdoses, suicides, homicides, and all the rest. But this is something new, so of course it is N E W s. But if you want to start a thread on any of those other on-going scourges, please be my guests. )

[vox_mundi]

Spreading Zika virus a new economic strain for Latin America

BARRANQUILLA, Colombia (AP) - A U.S. warning that pregnant women should avoid Latin American countries where a mosquito-borne virus is multiplying couldn't have come at a worse time for a region that's counting on tourism to give it a boost at a time of economic crises.

The outbreak comes as about 1 million people, a third of them foreigners, are expected to flood Rio de Janeiro in the coming month to celebrate Carnival. And hoteliers and others have invested billions of dollars in anticipation of a flood of visitors to the Summer Olympics in Rio in August.

"The Zika virus being in the news could potentially keep away people - even those who aren't pregnant or have no risk of becoming pregnant," said Otto Nogami, an economist at the Insper business school in Sao Paulo.

Ricardo Perez-Cuevas, a health specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, said the potential economic impact isn't limited to tourism.

He said a cost-of-illness study on mosquito-borne viruses following an outbreak in 2005 and 2006 of chikungunya in La Reunion, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, found substantially higher medical costs and a toll on companies that experienced higher absenteeism due to sick workers.

Dengue and chikungunya - two other fever-producing viruses spread by the same mosquito responsible for Zika - infected more than 3 million people in the region last year, according to the Pan American Health Organization.

Debt-laden Puerto Rico now has travel warning over Zika to worry about

NEW YORK – The tourism industry in debt-burdened Puerto Rico urged precautions on Tuesday after U.S. health authorities alerted pregnant woman against traveling to the island because of the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

Puerto Rico has estimated that tourism contributes about 6 percent of its gross domestic product, although Hanson said it was likely higher at around 13 to 15 percent.

Standard & Poor's analyst David Hitchcock said the leisure and hospitality sector represented only about 14 percent of total employment and 2 percent of GDP, "because it is basically a low-wage industry."

Cruise lines allow pregnant women to reschedule trips to Zika-affected areas

Carnival, Royal Caribbean International and Norwegian cruise lines are allowing pregnant women to reschedule their journeys if they had booked a cruise to a destination where a Zika virus health warning is in effect.

"Royal Caribbean will assist any pregnant women who do not feel comfortable sailing to countries affected with the Zika virus by providing alternate itinerary options," a statement says.

Passengers also may receive a cruise credit good for two years.

Norwegian and Carnival also said they would allow expectant mothers "covered by CDC advisories" to delay their cruise or travel to a different destination, Reuters reported.

Two airlines -- United and American -- on Tuesday announced they would allow pregnant women to change their travel plans to areas affected by the Zika virus.

"The CDC had been urging all travelers visiting areas of Latin America and the Caribbean to take extra precautions against mosquito bites to avoid contracting the virus. But officials upgraded the warning late Friday to a Level 2 travel notice and are now advising pregnant women and women trying to become pregnant to consider avoiding travel to the affected areas out of concern that Zika may cause a catastrophic birth defect called microcephaly.

"We likely will see a significant decline in trips by women who are pregnant or trying to conceive to these regions in light of the apparent link between the virus and birth defects,"

[dohboi]

Airlines, too now.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-ne ... ds-n504846

Ibon, is this affecting your business?

[careinke]

I see my predictions on the end of page one are beginning to come true.

[vox_mundi]

BBC: Zika virus could become 'explosive pandemic'

Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Daniel R Lucey and Lawrence O Gostin say the WHO's failure to act early in the recent Ebola crisis probably cost thousands of lives.

They warn that a similar catastrophe could unfold if swift action is not taken over the Zika virus.

"An Emergency Committee should be convened urgently to advise the Director-General about the conditions necessary to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern," Mr Lucey and Mr Gostin wrote.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Wednesday the US government intended to make a more concerted effort to communicate with Americans about the risks associated with the virus.

The Zika Virus Could Take a Huge Toll in the Americas

In the unfortunate case of the Americas in 2015-16, a perfect storm of biological events has unfolded -- any one of which by itself would have been relatively harmless. These events include the introduction of Asian and African mosquitoes, the spread of yellow fever and then dengue, followed by chikungunya and now Zika; the El Niño climate event; and a Brazilian crisis in both economics and politics. Combined, these have fueled an explosive spread of the disease.

"The incidence of infectious diseases will change with changes in climate, but we need to be nuanced and sophisticated in thinking about how they might change. We can't assume just because it's getting warmer we will see more of the diseases."

Human travel patterns, changes in the way people live and even whether people use air-conditioning could all have just as much of an impact on infectious diseases as changing weather patterns.

"If there are large migrations of people, conflict, changes in resource availability, certainly those things are likely to impact on those incidences."

Global health body under pressure to stop Zika virus

CHICAGO/GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization will hold a special session on Thursday on the Zika virus as the U.N. agency comes under pressure for quick action against the infection linked to thousands of birth defects in Brazil that is spreading through Latin America and the Caribbean.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan was set to address the agency's executive board in Geneva as countries took new steps on Wednesday to try to stop the mosquito-transmitted virus linked to the dangerous birth defect called microcephaly.

The WHO's leadership admitted last April to serious missteps in its handling of the Ebola crisis, which was focused mostly on three West African countries and killed more than 10,000 people. Some critics have said the WHO's slow response played a major role in allowing the epidemic to balloon into the worst Ebola outbreak on record.

Recent models for how the disease is spreading predict "significant international spread by travelers from Brazil to the rest of the Americas, Europe, and Asia," Dr. Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease expert, and Lawrence Gostin, a global health law expert, wrote in the viewpoint article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

There was word of more cases outside the affected region among travelers who had been to those countries. Portugal said five people tested positive after recent trips to Brazil.

Four similar cases were reported in New York, as well as single cases in California, Minnesota, Virginia and Arkansas among people who had traveled to the affected region.

Children of Men (2006)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Men#Plot

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/children-of-men-2007

[vox_mundi]

WHO: Zika virus ‘spreading explosively,’ ‘level of alarm extremely high’

The World Health Organization announced Thursday that it would convene an emergency meeting to try to find ways to stop the transmission of the Zika virus — which officials said is "spreading explosively" across the Americas.

"The level of alarm is extremely high, as is the level of uncertainty. Questions abound. We need to get some answers quickly, " Margaret Chan, the director-general of the WHO, said in a briefing to member countries in Geneva.

Chan said that the situation today is dramatically different than last year and that "the level of alarm is extremely high."

Health officials said the number of countries impacted by mosquitoes that are spreading the virus locally is now up to 23. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the United States now has 31 laboratory confirmed cases, all are travel-related and "this number is increasing rapidly." The country also has 20 additional cases because of local transmission in U.S. territories — 19 in Puerto Rico and one in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Reports of Zika-Linked Birth Defect Rise in Brazil

... The health authorities in Brazil said Wednesday that reported cases of microcephaly — a rare condition in which infants are born with abnormally small heads — had climbed to 4,180 since October, a 7% increase from the previous tally last week.

7%increase per week is pretty steep, unfortunately, since awareness and response only began about 2-3 months ago this increase will likely continue for at least the next six months or until it reaches local saturation.

Cases of microcephaly in other countries are starting to creep up also. It would be useful if WHO/CDC had a caseload per country spreadsheet to keep abreast of this.

Real-time Zika Alert Map - http://www.healthmap.org/zika/

[Ibon]

Good to hear. Hope you have a great year.

You too....

[dohboi]

vox, this story has made me think about the movie 'children of men' again, too.I always thought that its premise was a bit of a stretch. But people just not wanting to have kids for this (or many other reasons) makes a lot more sense.

Meanwhile, WaPo just came out with this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... -diseases/

How climate change could worsen the spread of Zika virus and other infectious diseases

...Aedes aegypti, also known as the “yellow fever” mosquito, and Aedes albopictus, or the Asian tiger mosquito, are two common species in the Americas. A. aegypti seems to be the preferred host for Zika, although it’s likely that A. albopictus is also able to carry it.

The thing about these mosquitoes is that they tend to thrive best in warm, wet climates, giving rise to concerns that future climate change may help them multiply and even spread into new parts of the North American continent.

This would be more than a mere annoyance to humans — scientists have warned that it could pose a significant public health risk with the potential for the increased transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.

[dohboi]

Here is the list of countries with travel alerts from CDC so far:

Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/ ... ravel.html

You're in Costa Rica, right? Are people talking about the likely arrival of this on your shores soon, yet? And about probable effects on tourism, etc...?

[vox_mundi]

Zika virus: Up to Four Million Zika Cases Predicted in the Americas

Three to four million people could be infected with Zika in the Americas this year, the World Health Organization predicts. Most will not develop symptoms, but the infection has been linked to brain defects in babies.

WHO director general Dr Margaret Chan said Zika had gone "from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions". She has set up a Zika "emergency team" after the "explosive" spread of the virus. It will meet on Monday to decide whether Zika should be treated as a global emergency.

Some facts to consider ...

2014 preliminary number of U.S. births was 3,985,924
2014 preliminary number of Brazilian births was 3,128,500 ~ 4,200 birth defect cases in 3 months

My SWAG is that Brazil will top out at 22-25,000 microcephaly cases by the end of the year - the rest of SA and CA maybe an equal number. The U.S. about 1-5,000 cases (better mosquito control, abortion option (except in Red states)

[jedrider]

The Zika virus should be welcomed. We'll go back to being apes again with small brains

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/zika-virus-outbreak/more-countries-report-zika-virus-airlines-offer-free-refunds-n504846

[Ibon]

You're in Costa Rica, right? Are people talking about the likely arrival of this on your shores soon, yet? And about probable effects on tourism, etc...?

We are in Panama, also a country listed. The mosquito carrier is Aedes aegypti which also is a vector for Dengue and yellow fever. This is the urban mosquito that breeds in dirty water and is associated with human habitation. You have to be more careful in urban Panama City or provincial towns than when you are in jungle habitat or montane forests where this mosquito is absent.

Before Zika I was already telling our guests to be watchful in urban areas of mosquitoes, for example bathrooms where mosquitoes gather because of the presence of water. This was because Dengue. Now add Zika to the list.

[dohboi]

"when you are in jungle habitat or montane forests where this mosquito is absent."

Interesting, and a bit counter-intuitive. Is that because there are more frogs and bats that eat mosquitoes in the jungle? Or is it that there are more places where water can gather in containers in urban areas? Or is it know what exactly is behind this distribution.

[Ibon]

"when you are in jungle habitat or montane forests where this mosquito is absent."

Interesting, and a bit counter-intuitive. Is that because there are more frogs and bats that eat mosquitoes in the jungle? Or is it that there are more places where water can gather in containers in urban areas? Or is it know what exactly is behind this distribution.

No, it has to do with the species of mosquito that carries the disease. There are hundreds of mosquito species, not all carry disease. THe Aedes aegypti breeds in stagnant and dirty water, old tires, ditches, water collected in lttered bottles, half opened coconuts facing upwards, etc. And it is a vector for Zika, dengue, chikungunya, yelllow fever.

Malaria for example is carried by Anapholes mosquitoes, a completely different genus.

Know your biology before travelling. The toilet tank (major breeding area of Aedes aegypti) in residential areas of the tropics is more dangerous than jungle trails!

[dohboi]

"Aedes aegypti breeds in stagnant and dirty water, old tires, ditches, water collected in lttered bottles, half opened coconuts facing upwards...toilet tank"

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at with the second part of my question. There a lot of places in most urban settings for those things to show up, unless there is a very widespread, ongoing, and successful campaign to constantly seek out and get rid of such...opportunities.

The UN seems to be on the verge of declaring this thing a global emergency. We'll see.

[Ibon]

"Aedes aegypti breeds in stagnant and dirty water, old tires, ditches, water collected in lttered bottles, half opened coconuts facing upwards...toilet tank"

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at with the second part of my question. There a lot of places in most urban settings for those things to show up, unless there is a very widespread, ongoing, and successful campaign to constantly seek out and get rid of such...opportunities.
.

Here is one of the main areas where these mosquitoes breed; out of reach rain gutters on the roofs that are clogged with organic matter and leaves. This causes small amounts of standing water to accumulate, thousands of wigglers (mosquito larvae) can be found in such out of reach places. A typical urban area has thousands of these gutters.

[dohboi]

Yikes! Are there any campaigns you know of to get people to clean these out?

[dohboi]

rs has a thread on this now: http://robertscribbler.com/2016/01/28/z ... ment-66745

I gave you a hat-tip over there again, vox.

One of the commenters noted that, as far as ability to spread quickly far beyond its original borders, this is much worse than Ebola. With Ebola, symptoms generally started coming on pretty strong shortly after someone starts to become contagious.

With Zika people are often largely symptom free.

"Yet for most, the infection causes no symptoms and leads to no lasting harm. "

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016 ... .html?_r=0

So they then can have plenty of time to get on a plane and travel around the world, possibly spreading it into multiple countries, before anyone realizes that they are in fact a vector for the spread.

Yeah, short of some pretty major coordinated global efforts, this thing looks like it could quickly become endemic basically anywhere the host mosquitoes can thrive.