As the Zika virus spreads across boundaries, there are increased fears that it might spread to malaria-endemic nations, including Nigeria. Martins Ifijeh writes on the need for preventive measures against the scourge
Zika virus, a relatively unknown pathogen, which has found its way to about 21 countries already, since May last year, may spread to other countries, especially malaria-endemic nations, like Nigeria, since the transmitter of the virus, the Aedes mosquito is a common strain of the mosquito family known to exist in the country.
Though an uncommon disease, it is not strange to Africa, and Nigeria in particular. In 1960, Nigeria experienced the first human case of the virus, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) records; that is 27 years after it was first documented in monkeys in Uganda, an East African country, known to be a breeding region for mosquitoes, just like Nigeria.
But the world did not take the 76 years old virus seriously because its outbreaks were sporadic and tiny, and the disease seemed to do little harm to humans, until recently, where experts believe it had taken a new turn and was becoming more deadly, forcing the world health body in February 1, to declare it an international health emergency, requiring new and urgent tool to eradicate.
The virus is a disease transmitted by the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti mosquito - the same mosquito strain that causes dengue and other tropical diseases. Experts described it as a strain with white markings on its legs and a marking in the form of a lyre on the upper surface of the thorax. The average wing length of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes varies greatly between 1.67– 3.83 mm in Peruvian habitat.
From Latin America to other parts of the Americas, the disease has been discovered to affect over three million people, with Brazil worst hit by the scourge in the latest outbreak, which has taken a more surprising shape; causing thousands of birth defects.
In Brazil for instance, over one million people have been infected with the Zika virus, with some of them coming down with symptoms, which includes conjunctivitis, low-grade fever between 37.8°C and 38.5°C, arthralgia, notably of small joints of hands and feet, with possible swollen joints, muscle pain, headache, retro-ocular headaches, cutaneous maculopapular rash, post-infection asthenia which seems to be frequent.
According to experts, an estimated 80 per cent of those infected show no symptoms.
But these symptoms didn’t seem to be the major source of worry for health experts. What became their major worry, was the strange experiences coming from the maternity wards in several parts of the country. Children were being born with little or no foreheads, a condition termed microcephaly
And the children stricken with the abnormally small heads, have doctors in the country asking: What is this virus? How could it have been around for over 70 years without us realising its power? What do we tell our patients about a bug that can hide in a mosquito’s proboscis and a man’s semen, even in human saliva or urine? What do we tell young women who ask if their unborn babies are safe?
Aside from their alarming appearance, many of the babies seemed healthy. “They cried. They breast-fed well,” explained an infectious diseases researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Dr. Celina M. Turchi, who monitored several deliveries in the country.
Experts believed mothers infected with the Zika virus must have passed the disease to their babies, thereby manifesting as microcephaly; an experience that has prompted its government to regrettably advised parents to consider delaying having children pending when the virus must have been eradicated from the country. As at the last count, over 4200 children have been born in the country with the abnormally small head. The story is also the same in Colombia, a country with abundant mosquitoes and a large population of susceptible people, with more than 3150 pregnant women already infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus, according to the country’s President, Juan Manuel Santos.
So far, there are no recorded cases of Zika-linked microcephaly in Colombia.
There are 25,645 people infected with Zika in Colombia, Santos said during a TV broadcast with health officials. “Among them are 3,177 pregnant women. The projection is that we could end up having 600,000 cases," Santos said.
Though no research has proved that the birth defects are outrightly caused by the Zika virus disease, the WHO believed there was a close relationship between the virus and the birth defects, hence its declaration of the disease as an international public health emergency, a rare move that signals the seriousness of the outbreak and give countries new tools to fight it.
The WHO defines a public health emergency of international concern as an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other states through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response.
At a news conference in Geneva, the Director General, WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan, acknowledged that the understanding of the connection between the Zika virus and microcephaly was hazy
and said that the uncertainty placed “a heavy burden” on pregnant women and their families throughout the Americas.
She said the emergency designation would allow the health agency to coordinate the many efforts to get desperately needed answers. Officials said research on the effects of Zika in pregnant women was underway in at least three countries: Brazil, Colombia and El Salvador.
The action, which the international body has taken only three times before, paves the way for the mobilisation of more funding and manpower to fight the mosquito-born pathogen spreading "explosively" through the Americas, and if measures are not put in place, may spread to other tropical regions, like Nigeria where different strains of mosquitoes are known to exist.
According to Chan, “even the clusters of microcephaly alone are enough to declare a public health emergency because of its heavy burden" on women, families and the community.” In addition, she noted, that there was significant concern given the lack of vaccines and rapid, reliable diagnostic tests, as well as the absence of any viral immunity in the population since the Americas were being affected for the first time.
Identifying a global public health emergency now allows the WHO to help coordinate surveillance efforts, such as recording and monitoring cases of Zika, microcephaly and other neurological complications.
With the magnitude of health challenges associated with the virus, how should Nigeria prevent the disease from surfacing in the country? The Medical Director, Priest and Crest Medical Centre, Lagos, Dr. Abayomi Adekunle, provides a guide.
He believed the best and most effective way to prevent the mosquito linked virus from infecting the Nigerian citizens was for everyone to put measures in place to prevent mosquitoes from breeding, and from biting.
“Stagnant water around houses, and even the ones in gutters should be removed. Nigerians should imbibe the culture of fumigating their homes at least once a month, as well as cultivate the mosquito net habits. If every home judiciously use insecticide treated nets, issues associated with mosquito bites will be a thing of the past,” Adekunle noted.
He called for increased vigilance among the citizens. “Since there is no travel ban on countries with the outbreak, whoever is going to endemic countries should be cautious of the causal factors, as well as how to prevent themselves from contracting the virus, and in turn transporting it back to Nigeria. Visitors from such countries should be medically screened at our ports before allowing them entrance into our country,” he noted.
He also explained that “if there are goods from such endemic regions, our border agencies should make sure there are no possibility of mosquitoes living in them.”
Source: This Day Live News
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