[dohboi]

http://grist.org/article/climate-dystop ... ng-babies/

Climate dystopia is here: Zika virus prompts calls for women to stop having babies

And the great unwashed insouciant masses rise up and scream: "I DON'T GIVE A FXXKING RAT'S XSS ABOUT ANYONE BUT ME, SO JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT AND GO SOD OFF!"

[dohboi]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... m-abroad1/

Zika Virus Threatens U.S. from Abroad

Exclusive: An interactive map, based on data from 50 state health departments, details how the mosquito-borne disease made its way to America in travelers’ bloodstreams

(Before anyone jumps in to point out that there are other threats to Americans (as if anyone doesn't know that), I will just point out that, yes, I know the stats on car accidents, heart attacks, cancer, drug overdoses, suicides, homicides, and all the rest. But this is something new, so of course it is N E W s. But if you want to start a thread on any of those other on-going scourges, please be my guests. )

[vox_mundi]

Spreading Zika virus a new economic strain for Latin America

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ARRANQUILLA, Colombia (AP) - A U.S. warning that pregnant women should avoid Latin American countries where a mosquito-borne virus is multiplying couldn't have come at a worse time for a region that's counting on tourism to give it a boost at a time of economic crises.

The outbreak comes as about 1 million people, a third of them foreigners, are expected to flood Rio de Janeiro in the coming month to celebrate Carnival. And hoteliers and others have invested billions of dollars in anticipation of a flood of visitors to the Summer Olympics in Rio in August.

"The Zika virus being in the news could potentially keep away people - even those who aren't pregnant or have no risk of becoming pregnant," said Otto Nogami, an economist at the Insper business school in Sao Paulo.

Ricardo Perez-Cuevas, a health specialist at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, said the potential economic impact isn't limited to tourism.

He said a cost-of-illness study on mosquito-borne viruses following an outbreak in 2005 and 2006 of chikungunya in La Reunion, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, found substantially higher medical costs and a toll on companies that experienced higher absenteeism due to sick workers.

Dengue and chikungunya - two other fever-producing viruses spread by the same mosquito responsible for Zika - infected more than 3 million people in the region last year, according to the Pan American Health Organization.

[dohboi]

Airlines, too now.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-ne ... ds-n504846

Ibon, is this affecting your business?

[careinke]

I see my predictions on the end of page one are beginning to come true.

[vox_mundi]

BBC: Zika virus could become 'explosive pandemic'

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ') Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Daniel R Lucey and Lawrence O Gostin say the WHO's failure to act early in the recent Ebola crisis probably cost thousands of lives.

They warn that a similar catastrophe could unfold if swift action is not taken over the Zika virus.

"An Emergency Committee should be convened urgently to advise the Director-General about the conditions necessary to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern," Mr Lucey and Mr Gostin wrote.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Wednesday the US government intended to make a more concerted effort to communicate with Americans about the risks associated with the virus.

[vox_mundi]

WHO: Zika virus ‘spreading explosively,’ ‘level of alarm extremely high’

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')The World Health Organization announced Thursday that it would convene an emergency meeting to try to find ways to stop the transmission of the Zika virus — which officials said is "spreading explosively" across the Americas.

"The level of alarm is extremely high, as is the level of uncertainty. Questions abound. We need to get some answers quickly, " Margaret Chan, the director-general of the WHO, said in a briefing to member countries in Geneva.

Chan said that the situation today is dramatically different than last year and that "the level of alarm is extremely high."

Health officials said the number of countries impacted by mosquitoes that are spreading the virus locally is now up to 23. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the United States now has 31 laboratory confirmed cases, all are travel-related and "this number is increasing rapidly." The country also has 20 additional cases because of local transmission in U.S. territories — 19 in Puerto Rico and one in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'G')ood to hear. Hope you have a great year.

[dohboi]

vox, this story has made me think about the movie 'children of men' again, too.I always thought that its premise was a bit of a stretch. But people just not wanting to have kids for this (or many other reasons) makes a lot more sense.

Meanwhile, WaPo just came out with this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ene ... -diseases/

How climate change could worsen the spread of Zika virus and other infectious diseases

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..Aedes aegypti, also known as the “yellow fever” mosquito, and Aedes albopictus, or the Asian tiger mosquito, are two common species in the Americas. A. aegypti seems to be the preferred host for Zika, although it’s likely that A. albopictus is also able to carry it.

The thing about these mosquitoes is that they tend to thrive best in warm, wet climates, giving rise to concerns that future climate change may help them multiply and even spread into new parts of the North American continent.

This would be more than a mere annoyance to humans — scientists have warned that it could pose a significant public health risk with the potential for the increased transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.

[dohboi]

Here is the list of countries with travel alerts from CDC so far: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, Venezuela, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

[vox_mundi]

Zika virus: Up to Four Million Zika Cases Predicted in the Americas

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Three to four million people could be infected with Zika in the Americas this year, the World Health Organization predicts. Most will not develop symptoms, but the infection has been linked to brain defects in babies.

WHO director general Dr Margaret Chan said Zika had gone "from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions". She has set up a Zika "emergency team" after the "explosive" spread of the virus. It will meet on Monday to decide whether Zika should be treated as a global emergency.

[jedrider]

The Zika virus should be welcomed. We'll go back to being apes again with small brains

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/zika-virus-outbreak/more-countries-report-zika-virus-airlines-offer-free-refunds-n504846

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')You're in Costa Rica, right? Are people talking about the likely arrival of this on your shores soon, yet? And about probable effects on tourism, etc...?

[dohboi]

"when you are in jungle habitat or montane forests where this mosquito is absent."

Interesting, and a bit counter-intuitive. Is that because there are more frogs and bats that eat mosquitoes in the jungle? Or is it that there are more places where water can gather in containers in urban areas? Or is it know what exactly is behind this distribution.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '&')quot;when you are in jungle habitat or montane forests where this mosquito is absent."

Interesting, and a bit counter-intuitive. Is that because there are more frogs and bats that eat mosquitoes in the jungle? Or is it that there are more places where water can gather in containers in urban areas? Or is it know what exactly is behind this distribution.

[dohboi]

"Aedes aegypti breeds in stagnant and dirty water, old tires, ditches, water collected in lttered bottles, half opened coconuts facing upwards...toilet tank"

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at with the second part of my question. There a lot of places in most urban settings for those things to show up, unless there is a very widespread, ongoing, and successful campaign to constantly seek out and get rid of such...opportunities.

The UN seems to be on the verge of declaring this thing a global emergency. We'll see.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '&')quot;Aedes aegypti breeds in stagnant and dirty water, old tires, ditches, water collected in lttered bottles, half opened coconuts facing upwards...toilet tank"

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at with the second part of my question. There a lot of places in most urban settings for those things to show up, unless there is a very widespread, ongoing, and successful campaign to constantly seek out and get rid of such...opportunities.
.

[dohboi]

Yikes! Are there any campaigns you know of to get people to clean these out?

[dohboi]

rs has a thread on this now: http://robertscribbler.com/2016/01/28/z ... ment-66745

I gave you a hat-tip over there again, vox.

One of the commenters noted that, as far as ability to spread quickly far beyond its original borders, this is much worse than Ebola. With Ebola, symptoms generally started coming on pretty strong shortly after someone starts to become contagious.

With Zika people are often largely symptom free.

"Yet for most, the infection causes no symptoms and leads to no lasting harm. "

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016 ... .html?_r=0

So they then can have plenty of time to get on a plane and travel around the world, possibly spreading it into multiple countries, before anyone realizes that they are in fact a vector for the spread.

Yeah, short of some pretty major coordinated global efforts, this thing looks like it could quickly become endemic basically anywhere the host mosquitoes can thrive.