THE ZIKA VIRUS

THE ZIKA VIRUS

This piece of news was fond in BBC.com. I'll leave a link to a short but interesting video down below if you want to watch it.

The Zika virus is a virus which was first founded in monkeys in 1947 in the Zika forest, Uganda. The first infected registered human was dated in 1954, in Nigeria but for decades it did not appear to pose much of a threat to people and was largely ignored by the scientific community. 

It was only with an outbreak on the Micronesian island of Yap in 2007 that some researchers began to take an interest. In the past year the virus exploded, sweeping through the Caribbean and Latin America infecting probably a couple of million people.

What we need to know is this:

• Spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also carries dengue fever and yellow fever.
• Discovered in Africa in the 1940s but is now spreading in Latin America.
• Scientists say there is growing evidence of a link to microcephaly, that leads to babies being born with small heads.
• Can lead to fever and a rash but most people show no symptoms, and there is no known cure.
• Only way to fight Zika is to clear stagnant water where mosquitoes breed, and protect against mosquito bites.

VIDEO