Technoglitch
Core Member
On March 22, the World Health Organisation’s Director-General Margaret Chan issued a statement updating the media on the Zika virus situation. “In less than a year, the status of Zika has changed from a mild medical curiosity to a disease with severe public health implications,” she said. Chan acknowledged that our knowledge base is quickly expanding as well but also that “the more we know, the worse things look”. This is where we are today with the Zika outbreak and related research developments.
Where has it spread to?
According to WHO’s latest statement, the virus is currently circulating in 38 countries/territories. The US’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists 39 countries/territories with active Zika transmission while the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) says that 43 countries/territories have experienced local transmission in the past nine months.
So far, according to WHO, 12 countries/territories have reported rise in GBS cases with an apparent Zika-link. Two countries – Brazil and Panama – have reported microcephaly while Colombia, Puerto Rico and Cabo Verde are still investigating their first suspected Zika-linked microcephaly cases. The virus has not been circulating long enough in the other affected countries for their pregnancies to come to term so more microcephaly cases could yet be on the horizon.
Earlier this month, CDC chief Thomas R. Frieden visited the economically troubled Puerto Rico and expressed alarm over the situation there; the frequency of cases is doubling every week and the virus is expected to infect a quarter of the 3.5 million population within a year.
A PTI news report from March 3 quoted Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director-General Soumya Swaminathan as confirming no Zika case has been found in India so far and the priority right now was to up our surveillance game by equipping labs to test suspected cases.
How can we deal with this emergency?
WHO has held three high-level meetings this month of which two were focused on management of the outbreak. It was agreed that the highest priority was to establish a reliable diagnostic test. Chan said that at this point more than 30 companies are working on such tests. Fourteen vaccine developers around the world, including in India, have Zika vaccine projects under way, said Chan in her statement.
Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech (the same company whose rotavirus vaccine is being launched nationally on March 26) announced their Zika vaccine projects in February 2016. They began work on their inactivated vaccine in late 2014 and have been named by a WHO official as one of the two front-runners, along with the US NIH’s DNA vaccine. However, the timing of their announcement as well as allegations that they may not have followed standard procedure for importing the virus has raised some suspicion, as reported by a news analysis in Business Standard. Moreover, as The Wire recentlywrote, it remains unclear what Bharat Biotech’s plans regarding getting a suitable animal model or clinical trials in India are.
Zika: ‘The More We Know, the Worse Things Look’ | The Wire
Where has it spread to?
According to WHO’s latest statement, the virus is currently circulating in 38 countries/territories. The US’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists 39 countries/territories with active Zika transmission while the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) says that 43 countries/territories have experienced local transmission in the past nine months.
So far, according to WHO, 12 countries/territories have reported rise in GBS cases with an apparent Zika-link. Two countries – Brazil and Panama – have reported microcephaly while Colombia, Puerto Rico and Cabo Verde are still investigating their first suspected Zika-linked microcephaly cases. The virus has not been circulating long enough in the other affected countries for their pregnancies to come to term so more microcephaly cases could yet be on the horizon.
Earlier this month, CDC chief Thomas R. Frieden visited the economically troubled Puerto Rico and expressed alarm over the situation there; the frequency of cases is doubling every week and the virus is expected to infect a quarter of the 3.5 million population within a year.
A PTI news report from March 3 quoted Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director-General Soumya Swaminathan as confirming no Zika case has been found in India so far and the priority right now was to up our surveillance game by equipping labs to test suspected cases.
How can we deal with this emergency?
WHO has held three high-level meetings this month of which two were focused on management of the outbreak. It was agreed that the highest priority was to establish a reliable diagnostic test. Chan said that at this point more than 30 companies are working on such tests. Fourteen vaccine developers around the world, including in India, have Zika vaccine projects under way, said Chan in her statement.
Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech (the same company whose rotavirus vaccine is being launched nationally on March 26) announced their Zika vaccine projects in February 2016. They began work on their inactivated vaccine in late 2014 and have been named by a WHO official as one of the two front-runners, along with the US NIH’s DNA vaccine. However, the timing of their announcement as well as allegations that they may not have followed standard procedure for importing the virus has raised some suspicion, as reported by a news analysis in Business Standard. Moreover, as The Wire recentlywrote, it remains unclear what Bharat Biotech’s plans regarding getting a suitable animal model or clinical trials in India are.
Zika: ‘The More We Know, the Worse Things Look’ | The Wire
