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Zika Research Papers

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The virus Zika commonly found in Southwest Asia has suddenly affected Americans in South Flordia and Texas. The virus has spread mostly by the Aedes mosquito which bites a person and passes it onto them. Another transferring method of Zika is from a pregnant woman to its offspring. “Some infants with congenital Zika virus infection who do not have microcephaly at birth may later experience slowed head growth and develop postnatal microcephaly” (CDC). Although Zika is commonly known for birth defects, some women with the virus may not give birth to a defected baby or even have any symptoms. Symptoms do not occur with this virus which makes it hard to find in people. A way of testing is to take urine and blood samples to detect Zika. Also, no treatment or cure has been made. The only way to keep the virus contained is to avoid being bitten or spray for the mosquitos using an areal spray.

Flordia State University, John Hopkins University, and The National Institute of Health has all teamed up to try to find a cure for Zika. An existing drug, Nicolasmide, has been commonly used to treat tapeworm. Recent studies have shown that it may also be able to stop Zika from multiplying in the body and keep it from killing precious brain cells. Hengli Tang, a professor at FSU, teamed up …show more content…

We have been underestimating the virus and it has spiraled out of porportion. Without better global surveillance of the disease, it will become harder to prepare for possible virus outbreaks in urban areas. Having global surveillance is very costly, which is why most developing countries do not have it. Zika is an easy to miss disease with there not being many symptoms or cases of it. The first outbreak was on Yap Island. Over 70 percent of the population developed the virus, yet researchers did not know how to cure or find it easily. There are still many things that are unknown to us about this virus, which is why the time is now to fight against

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