United States: As per the reports, one virus that most people rarely heard before is making lots of headlines.
It is termed Oropouche, and there are numerous reports regarding an alarming incidence of its detection.
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As we have seen in the current year, there have been more than ten thousand cases, mostly recorded in South America and the Caribbean regions. The overwhelming majority are in Brazil, seen between 2015 and 2022, with a total count of 261.
In August, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) published an epidemiological alert insisting on the necessity of the energetic prevention, watch, and diagnosis of the viral infection that is transmitted through the bite of a mosquito or midge, which is a type of a fly.
According to a report published in the October 2007 CDC journal Emerging Infectious Disease, sex work might be used to spread the virus.
According to Dr. Tulio de Oliveira, director of the Center of Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, who was not involved in the study, “This is a very big development,” NPR News reported.
About virus detection
The virus is said to have been discovered in 1955 and has been named after the village in Trinidad where the virus was discovered from.
Oropouche is maintained through avian and primate as well as rats and sloths that are natural hosts. Like dengue, Zika, and Chikungunya, it is an arbovirus that encompasses any disease transmitted by insects.
According to Dr. Chris Braden, deputy director of the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, “Biting midges are known as ‘no-see-ums,’ ” and “They’re so small they can actually fly through standard window screens.”
The visible symptoms include fever, rash, muscular pain, joint pain, and headaches. However, there are severe forms and complications, such as encephalitis and meningitis, as well as inflammation of the brain and its surrounding membrane that can make the brain swell.
Like Zika, a woman can pass the virus to the fetus during pregnancy — this can cause birth defects or even fetal death.
Moreover, Dr. Davidson Hamer, infectious disease doctor and professor of Global Health and Medicine at Boston University School of Public Health, stated, “There have been a few cases of maternal to fetal transmission, and there are four cases of congenital Oropouche infections that have been described — all of which led to microcephaly, which is a small head size,” NPR News reported.
“What is really scary is that [there has been a] miscarriage and, most recently, a stillbirth,” he continued.