The virus behind an outbreak in Brazil can spread from mother to fetus

A virus that brought about a tremendous outbreak in Brazil this year can spread from a pregnant woman to the fetus. The confirmation of several cases of transmission to the womb implies that the virus, often sometimes called Oropouche, has a feature in common with two other insect-borne viruses, Zika and dengue.

A forty-year-old woman’s stillbirth this summer in Brazil became linked to transmission of the virus from the girl to the fetus, researchers report October 30 all during the New England Journal of Medicine. (The World Health Organization defines a stillbirth as the death of a fetus after 28 weeks of pregnancy.) The Brazilian Ministry of Health has also confirmed two other deaths resulting from the spread of Oropouche virus to the womb: a stillbirth to a 28-year-old woman and a baby born with congenital anomalies who died after Forty seven days. There are other potential cases of transmission to the womb being investigated.

As of mid-October, Brazil has reported more than 8,000 cases of Oropouche fever this can be because foundation of the year. It’s the largest outbreak all during the Americas this year; an awful lot of the alternative countries with cases consist of Peru, with more than 900, and Cuba, with more than Five hundred. Infections can spark off fever, chills, joint pain and severe headaches, among other symptoms. The virus is spread mainly by the bite of Culicoides paraensis midges, which are very small flies, and each now and then by mosquitoes. As with Zika, there aren’t any medicines to treat Oropouche fever or vaccines that pay attention on the virus.

It’s also that you're going to handle to consider that Oropouche virus may o.k. be spread through sexual transmission. A person diagnosed with Oropouche fever this summer still had functional virus in his semen sixteen days after his symptoms started, a special group of researchers report all during the December Emerging Infectious Diseases. If the ability to transmit sexually proves true, it'd be one more feature in common with Zika, which brought about a tremendous outbreak of infections all during the Western Hemisphere in 2015 and 2016 (SN: 12/13/17).

Brazil’s large outbreak, the confirmation that the virus can spread to the womb and harm the fetus and the sudden deaths of two females in their twenties who developed Oropouche fever have brought more attention to the now no longer-well-understood virus.