New Zika Hot Spot - Colombia

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New Zika hotspot feared in Colombia and Venezuela

• ANATOLY KURMANAEV, SARA SCHAEFER MUÑOZ
• THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
• FEBRUARY 10, 2016 12:00AM
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A municipality worker prepares to fumigate a home to prevent the spread of Zika in Acapulco, Mexico.

 

Health authorities say Zika is spreading quickly across Colombia and Venezuela, warning that the two countries’ porous border region could be the next hotspot for the mosquito-borne virus.

 

Infectious-disease specialists say there are at least tens of thousands of cases across the two countries, which have a population of 80 million people.

Health authorities say the virus is acute in the Colombian border city of Cucuta and flourishing in a string of towns and cities stretching north across steamy, swampy cattle fields and hamlets to Venezuela’s second-largest city, Maracaibo, near the Caribbean coast.

The arrival of the virus, which produces generally mild symptoms but may be linked to a rare neurological disorder and to ­babies born with under-sized heads, is scaring people as it has in Brazil, where up to 1.5 million people may be infected.

Dairy Varela, 19, four months pregnant, described feeling chills and aches as she sat in the waiting room of a clinic in San Jose­cito on the Venezuelan side of the border. She said doctors did not know what she had, since they lacked the supplies to test, but she bore hallmark signs of Zika. “Now my skin feels terrible, prickly, and I’m getting bumps on my arms and my face — see?” she said, pointing to a pink patch on her face. “I’m so scared. I’ve seen pictures on TV of those ­babies born with small brains.”

Colombian health authorities have confirmed more than 20,000 cases of Zika, but they estimate there are 100,000 cases. They estimate the number of infections will grow to up to 700,000 this year.

By the end of year, officials estimate, Colombia will have 500 cases of microcephaly, in which babies are born with under-sized heads and brains, and an extra 700 of Guillain-Barre syndrome, which can cause paralysis and death.

Adding to the anxiety is the breakdown in Venezuela’s health system, which is starved for medicine and supplies amid the country’s economic meltdown.

Mosquitoes do not respect international boundaries,” Fernando Ruíz, Colombia’s vice-minister of health, said last week .

“We are concerned about what is happening in Venezuela, because Venezuela hasn’t done any epidemiological reports.”

Last month, Venezuela’s Health Minister said authorities had identified 4700 cases of Zika, a figure that has drawn sharp criticism from medical associ­ations and infectious disease specialists in Venezuela and abroad.

They say the real figure could be in the tens of thousands.

“What we’re seeing now is a tip of the iceberg,” said Nellis Barbossa, chief epidemiologist for Zulia, the Venezuelan border state whose capital is Maracaibo. “We have an epidemic now.”

Tours of a shantytown and hospital in Maracaibo, as well as poor communities along Venezuela’s northwest border with Colombia, left an impression that Zika was spreading unchecked. Venezuela lacks even aspirin and bug repellent, which doctors say are among the first lines of defence for viruses such as Zika.

In Colombia, the Aedes mosquito that carries Zika is breeding fast. In one town there, El Zulia, residents say they are ­constantly surrounded by swarms of what they call “vampire mosquitoes”.

“Practically everyone here has had Zika,” said Piedad Uribe, an administrator at a small hospital in El Zulia.

Aleyda Zabaleta, a doctor at the hospital, logs each possible case of Zika, dispenses aceta­minophen and ibuprofen for pain and antihistamines for the virus’s stinging rashes. Pregnant women are referred to a larger hospital in Cucuta.

Every morning, Dr Zabaleta leads a team that takes the hospital’s only ambulance into the small communities to treat ­people possibly infected by Zika and to advise them to get rid of the standing water where mosquitoes breed. “People need to know that the point of its origin is often mosquitoes breeding in the home,” she said.

The Wall Street Journal

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/wall-street-journal/new-zika-hotspot-feared-in-colombia-and-venezuela/news-story/e7ec318f8ae427d7cd587a769cefef9c