Zika virus, an infection caused by Aedes aegypti mosquito bites that has been linked to paralysis and birth defects, has continued to affect several Latin American nations. It is also posing a threat to spread in the United States.
Due to the severity of the Zika virus infection, the World Health Organization recently revealed that traditional insecticide spraying can't reduce mosquito populations. In fact, insecticide spraying and other mosquito control techniques have had no significant impact in interrupting the transmission of dengue, igniting concerns on how officials can stop the spread of Zika virus, CBC News noted.
"Certainly it is worth continuing to try to use this method for the lack of other interventions, but what the scientists said is that there is an urgent need to also put in place studies to evaluate whether it has a benefit or not," WHO's Marie-Paule Kieny said.
Since the virus has been spreading in Latin America, Brazilian officials aim to try a more targeted tactic through the help of villages and individuals. They also believed that the winter season might help in the reduction of mosquito populations.
"Everything that was done in the country to control [mosquitoes] apparently didn't work," Sao Paolo's Butantan Institute director Jorge Kalil said during the three-day Zika research and development meeting on Wednesday. "The problem right now is it's very difficult to fight the [mosquito], there are billions and billions of insects."
Meanwhile, a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine discovered that Zika virus can also be linked to a lethal type of brain inflammation, NBC News reported. According to the French researchers who helmed the study, the virus can may be associated to meningoencephalitis, an inflammation of the brain membranes.
Zika virus, however, is not the only disease that is spread primarily by Aegypti mosquitoes. And dengue and West Nile virus can also meningoencephalitis.
As of late, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that Zika virus is now spreading in the Americas, as well as on several islands in the Pacific such as New Caledonia and American Samoa. And only 20 percent of Zika-infected patients typically manifest symptoms including mild illness, mild fever, rash and joint pain.
Aside from its latest association to meningoencephalitis, Zika virus is also connected to microcephaly, a birth defect that causes abnormally small heads and incomplete brain development, and to Guillain-Barre syndrome, a condition that causes paralysis, USA Today has learned.
