The first Zika case was identified in 1947 in Uganda – but most people learned about the virus early this year, when the disease showed up in the U.S.
“It spreads geographically because we travel,” Dr. Robert L. Cox, infectious disease specialist and member of Community Health Action Coalition board, said at Fort Lewis College as a part of the Life-Long Learning Lecture Series.
The Zika virus can be transmitted by mosquitoes and lives in body fluids, such as blood and semen. It can be transmitted from men to sex partners, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is uncertain if women transmit the disease during sex.
One problem is that 80 percent of infected people don’t show any symptoms. So it can happen that a man who traveled trough Brazil, where Zika has been a problem since 2015, and was bitten and infected by a mosquito doesn’t know about the infection. When he arrives in the U.S. and has sex with a woman, the woman is infected with Zika.
The virus has potential consequences for pregnant women, and could lead to a miscarriage, said Cox. The virus could be passed to the fetus and has been linked to an increase in microcephaly in Brazil. But much about the virus is unknown, according to the CDC.
Children with microcephaly have a small head that doesn’t have enough space for the brain to develop completely. This leads to cognition problems.
It is believed that if the viral infection happens during the pregnancy’s first three months, the damages can be worse than if it happens in the last three months, Cox said. For Cox, there is only one conclusion: “If you are pregnant or plan to get pregnant, you have to think what you do.”
Cox also discussed the danger of superbugs, old bacteria that become resistant to medicine. One example is gonorrhea, which was treated with penicillin but nowadays, the bacteria are resistant to the antibiotic. One way to prevent bacteria from becoming resistant against antibiotics is to take them as they are prescribed. If a doctor tells a patient to take an antibiotic for 10 days, the patient shouldn’t stop taking it after seven days, even if the patient feels much better. Some bacteria might remain and could become resistant to the antibiotic.
Cox suggested another way to prevent antibiotics resistance. “Don’t ask for antibiotics,” he said. If the doctor prescribes antibiotics, the patient should always ask why and if the antibiotics are necessary at all.
Thomas Feiler is a student at the Catholic University Eichstaett-Ingolstadt, Germany, and an intern at The Durango Herald.
