ZIKA- Added COMMENTARY By Haitian-Truth

News about Zika keeps getting worse. First is growing evidence that Zika causes of the serious birth defect microcephaly (abnormally small brain and skull) and severe mental retardation. The CDC just announced their analysis that concludes Zika is the cause of many recent microcephaly cases, with CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden declaring, “There is no longer any doubt that Zika causes microcephaly.” He added, “Never before in history has there been a situation where a bite from a mosquito can result in a devastating malformation.” Studies supporting this conclusion were just published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

This past week, Zika infections were also linked with more Guillain-Barré cases, a type of paralysis from an autoimmune reaction. Another neurologic bombshell was that Brazilian scientists have linked Zika with an autoimmune syndrome called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, or ADEM, which causes symptoms mimicking multiple sclerosis. Zika seems to have an affinity for nerve cells (neurotropism), and has been linked with cases of encephalitis (brain inflammation) and myelitis (nerve inflammation) as well.

Microscopic image of Zika virus - Cynthia Goldsmith/CDCMicroscopic image of Zika virus – Cynthia Goldsmith/CDC

The final bit of recent bad news is that Zika is likely more often sexually transmitted than was previously believed. What was especially striking is that “semen had 630,914 times more ZIKV RNA in it than serum (316,209 times more than urine)–two weeks later! And in addition to the detection of viral RNA, infectious ZIKV could be isolated using cell culture of the semen sample,” as virologist Ian Mackay explains.

Zika is also again highlighting that politics trumps rational public health policy, especially given the growing range of serious neurologic abnormalities in both the fetus and now adults. Zika shows huge weaknesses in our public health infrastructure and ability to respond to infectious disease threats, as well as illustrating our Congress’ priorities. For example, Maryn McKenna’s post highlights how fragmented the insect control efforts are, and the lack of coordination between jurisdictions. These threats go well beyond Zika, and are urgently problematic for other mosquito and tick-borne diseases as well.

What is Congress’ response? They have refused to fund NIH’s request for emergency funding for Zika, forcing President Obama to divert money from our Ebola response. Their attitude is like Alfred E. Neuman’s “What-Me Worry?” with House Speaker Paul Ryan declaring that the federal government has “plenty of money” to fight Zika. If Congress is worried about waste, perhaps they should start with some pork projects and mismanaged Pentagon projects detailed in this recent report from CIP.

The neglect of public health didn’t just start. West Nile infections, which are also mosquito-borne, boosted attention to public health needs in the early 2000s. Since then, there has been a drop of at least 41% in the number of people doing mosquito surveillance, to see what infections the insects carry. There are seven states that don’t do any surveillance. States have also cut back on testing ticks for Lyme, Babesia and other emerging infectious diseases.

The 2014 report by the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists was quite damning, concluding, “public health laboratory capacity for proactive surveillance is poor to nonexistent in most states.

A similar report from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials reports revealed that “since 2008, 20 agencies have cut programs for sexually transmitted diseases (STD), including AIDS, and 15 have cut laboratory services.” We saw how well such cuts worked out in Indiana last year, with its resulting HIV epidemic. And treatment is far more expensive than prevention. At the same time as health department STD clinics have been reduced, the closures of Planned Parenthood clinics have further reduced access to care for many. Only looking between 2008 and 2014, state spending on public health decreased by $1.3 billion. While the economy improved, the spending on this important part of our health infrastructure did not, as public health funding is considered discretionary by most states.

There is little doubt that Zika will soon reach the continental United States. The virus is already hitting Puerto Rico hard (along with large swaths of Latin America and the Caribbean). Building a bigger wall on the border with Mexico won’t keep the problem out. In fact, the CDC revised its estimates of the reach of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits Zika, showing it is likely to extend further than previously thought.

Aedes range map - cdcImage via CDC.

In the U.S., Zika is likely to especially affect urban areas in the coastal states, like Miami, Houston, New Orleans and Biloxi. As noted before, Zika will disproportionately affect the poor and people of color. Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, explained that these Aedes mosquitoes are likely to be found in crowded urban slums, where people “live in proximity to garbage, including old tires, plastic containers and drainage ditches filled with stagnant water.” Also, since the poor are more likely to live in dilapidated housing without screens (let alone air-conditioning), they are more vulnerable to insect-borne diseases like Zika, dengue, Chikungunya and Chagas disease (a major cause of heart failure, transmitted by the triatomine “kissing” bug).

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the NIH, has practically begged Congress for emergency funding, with his pleas falling on deaf ears. “By not supporting the resources needed for an aggressive response to Zika, Congress is playing a very risky game with the health of the American people. A new infectious disease doesn’t care about politics, and Congress should be focused on how to best support the efforts needed to protect health,” concluded Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, Associate Dean, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

We sorely need more funding for research and public health—not just for Zika, but also for Lyme, antimicrobial resistance and a host of other urgent threats to our country. Because of the likely birth defects, serious neurologic consequences and likely sexual transmission, Zika funding is especially critically important now. Public health needs should be above partisan politics. Tell Congress to do its job.

For more medical/pharma news and perspective, follow me on Twitter @drjudystone or here at Forbes

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COMMENT:HAITIAN-TRUTH.ORG

The threat of ZIKA to the United States is frightening and is now being recognized.

The threat of ZIKA to a country like Haiti is OVERWHELMING – perhaps equaling, or exceeding any other threat to our peoples’ survival.

Short and long-term disaster!

Children with malformed brains that will be a weight on the Nation for life.

Sickened adults, with major brain afflictions that create a massive group of handicapped, beyond the Nation’s ability to care for them.

The mosquito borne ZIKA must be challenged and combatted with a massive program of mosquito eradication.

At the moment, Haiti has no program to combat mosquito borne diseases.

We must combat the threat of Malaria, chikungunya, and, most importantly ZIKA.

Bill Gates, and his GATES FOUNDATION  have committed themselves to the eradication of Malaria worldwide.

We can approach them for assistance in this combat for survival.

This will be a first challenge for the Jovenel Presidency preparing the attack before the next rainy season.

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3 thoughts on “ZIKA- Added COMMENTARY By Haitian-Truth

  1. HAITI IS IN NEEDS OF INTERNATIONAL AIDE ( ZICA ETC… ) PEOPLE ARE DYING , MEANWHILE A SMALL GROUP OF BAD GUYS : PRIVERT , ARISTIDE , LEOPOLD BERLANGER ETC … IS HOLDING HOSTAGE THE ENTIRE COUNTRY .

    1. Haiti needs help, from within and from the international community. Jovonel was my vote, and every other Haitian that I have spoken to, but we have these parasites taking control, and ALSO mosquitos with Zika.
      So far, our President Elect is the ONLY one that has offered a solution

  2. WASHINGTON POST

    FILE – In this Friday, Feb. 12, 2016 file photo, Lara, who is less then 3-months old and was born with microcephaly, is examined by a neurologist at the Pedro I hospital in Campina Grande, Paraiba state, Brazil. On Wednesday, April 13, 2016, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there’s enough evidence now to declare that the Zika virus during the mother’s pregnancy causes the microcephaly birth defect and other brain abnormalities. (Felipe Dana, File/Associated Press)
    By Richard Lardner and Josh Lederman | AP April 14 at 4:43 PM

    WASHINGTON — When it comes to Zika funding, President Barack Obama and Republicans agree on one point: It’s the other guy’s fault.

    Growing concerns over the virus left Washington pointing fingers on Thursday about why Congress has yet to approve any of the dollars Obama has requested. The White House charged that GOP lawmakers “frittered away” a chance to deal with a looming crisis, while Republicans said Obama had dropped the ball on key details Congress needs to properly consider his request.

    Come summer, when mosquito season arrives, worries about Zika and the birth defects it causes will be “dominating the news,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest warned.

    “This is going to be on the front page of newspapers across the country,” Earnest said. “And I don’t know what Republicans are going to say that they did to prepare for it.”

    The alarm bells marked a sharp reversal from just a few weeks ago, when the White House downplayed Zika as a weak, nonfatal version of dengue fever. “For most people, the risk of the Zika virus is minimal because the Zika virus has relatively mild symptoms,” Earnest said in late January.

    White House aides have since ditched that talking point, in light of mounting research showing the Zika virus is more serious than previously understood. On Wednesday, U.S. health officials declared there was no longer any doubt that Zika leads to babies being born with abnormally small heads and other severe brain defects, confirming researchers’ worst fears.

    Bracing for a political firestorm likely to accompany public concern, Republicans finally conceded this week that at least some of the $1.9 billion Obama asked for in February for Zika is needed. But top GOP leaders suggested leftover Ebola funds being redirected for Zika would be enough to hold the Obama administration over until the fall.

    Republicans, wary of giving Obama what they said was “almost a slush fund” to deal with Zika, sought to turn the tables by saying it was Obama’s fault his request had been sitting idle for two months. House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office touted a series of letters from GOP lawmakers to the White House asking for complex details about how the dollars would be spent — letters that Republicans said had gone unanswered.

    Not so fast, the White House said. While Earnest was at the podium for his televised daily press briefing, fielding questions about the request, an aide rushed him a note informing him the White House had, indeed, responded — with a “detailed, four-page response” more than a week ago.

    Your move, Republicans.

    Ryan’s office said that letter from Obama’s budget director fell short. The White House said those inquiries were overkill.

    If lawmakers leave Washington in July for their seven-week vacation without having funded Zika, Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress, could face a big political problem just ahead of the November elections.

    Said Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., “We’re trying to be helpful, and want to help.”

    ___

    House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s days are packed, what with Puerto Rico’s financial crisis, the Zika virus and the federal budget.

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