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Zika is a disease that seems to keep evolving, and escalating. The mosquito-borne virus many thought would be a milder version of dengue has turned out to be a serious neurological threat, causing the birth defect microcephaly (which often includes brain damage), and Guillain-Barré, an autoimmune disorder that attacks the nervous system. It’s also been linked to inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, and it may be that the virus specifically targets nerve cells.
The problem is not the suffering inflicted by the initial infection; there probably won’t even be any suffering for most, since four out of five people never experience any symptoms. The danger is what might happen later—the fetuses that get microcephaly, the people whose brains and spinal cords swell and possibly sustain damage, the people temporarily paralyzed by Guillain-Barré, the ones who die because the Guillain-Barré stops their breath and they’re unable to get to a hospital with a respirator.
Zika is an epidemic on delay, with the worst of the outbreak’s effects trailing in the wake of the mosquitoes that carry the virus. Until neurological symptoms show up in a population, Zika presents a lot like its viral family members dengue and chikungunya. And there was no commercially available diagnostic test for Zika then, so when it first appeared, there was no good way to know that the country was seeing something new.
Read full, original post: Zika Is a Delayed Epidemic
