Tracking the next pandemic: Avian Flu Talk |
Singapore 215 Cases - Different Zika Strain |
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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Posted: September 03 2016 at 6:54am |
This has to do with a little I was talking about a little while ago. We have two different strains of Zika. Not sure why officials are going hush hush on that. Asia's is transmitting fairly efficiently and last I saw it was hospitalizing 20% (link). There is absolutely no doubt this Asian strain will be imported here very soon. Better hope that 20% hospitalization rate was a misprint, although pretty sure it wasn't
Zika cases in Singapore top 200Sequencing analysis of two patients from the Aljunied Crescent/Sims Drive cluster show the virus is likely from a Southeast Asia strain and not imported from South America, authorities say.SINGAPORE: There are 26 new cases of locally transmitted Zika virus in Singapore, authorities said on Saturday (Sep 3), bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 215.In a joint statement, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and National Environment Agency (NEA) said 24 of the new cases are linked to the Aljunied Crescent/Sims Drive/Kallang Way/Paya Lebar Way cluster. They added that two cases have no known links to any existing cluster, but did not specify where these cases were located. Meanwhile, the National Public Health Laboratory has worked with A*STAR’s Bioinformatics Institute to complete the sequencing analysis of the Zika virus found in two patients from the Aljunied Crescent/Sims Drive cluster, and the analysis indicated that the virus belongs to the Asian lineage and likely evolved from the strain that was already circulating in Southeast Asia, MOH and NEA said. They added that the virus from these two patients was not imported from South America, and that more details will be released shortly from the research team. NEA said it has been continuing with vector control operations in high-risk areas such as Aljunied Crescent, Sims Drive, Paya Lebar Way and Kallang Way. As of Sep 2, 57 breeding habitats – comprising 32 in homes
and 25 in common areas or other premises – have been detected and
destroyed in these clusters, the agency said. NEA officers and
grassroots volunteers are also continuing with outreach in the expanded
cluster areas like Paya Lebar Way and Kallang Way. Vector
control operations and outreach efforts are also being carried out in
Bedok North Avenue. NEA said that as of Sep 2, 26 breeding habitats in
Bedok North Avenue – comprising 17 in homes and 9 in common areas or
other premises – have been detected and destroyed. Mosquito control
measures are ongoing, while NEA officers are continuing with outreach in
this cluster as well. Indoor spraying of insecticides,
outdoor fogging, and oiling and flushing of drains are also underway in
these two cluster areas. “In such areas with active transmission,
outdoor fogging and indoor spraying and misting are both necessary
because there may be infected adult mosquitoes in both outdoor and
indoor areas that need to be destroyed before they bite and infect more
people,” NEA said. “These methods are, however, only effective
if the insecticide has direct contact with the mosquitoes, and thus
have to be repeated frequently as new batches of mosquitoes will
continue to emerge until all breeding habitats are found and removed.
Hence, routine fogging is not a sustainable vector control measure –
source reduction is still a more effective and sustainable strategy.” Meanwhile
for non-cluster areas, NEA said that the most effective
mosquito-control measure remains as source reduction, through detecting
and removing breeding habitats and killing larvae, “as it eliminates the
mosquitoes at the most vulnerable stage of their life cycle”. This is
in line with WHO’s recommendations for vector control. The statement on Saturday said that community outreach activities are being conducted across the island over these two weekends to urge all residents to join in the collective efforts in the fight against the mosquito-borne virus. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/zika-cases-in-singapore-top-200/3097624.html |
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jacksdad
Executive Admin Joined: September 08 2007 Location: San Diego Status: Offline Points: 47251 |
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This is just the start, Albert. Climate change is driving the spread of vector-borne diseases, and Zika is just the first to ride the wave into areas not previously affected. Yellow Fever, Dengue, Malaria - they're all capable of spreading as mosquitoes move. We should probably buy shares in companies manufacturing bug repellent because this is only going to get worse.
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"Buy it cheap. Stack it deep"
"Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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I agree. This could get interesting. The prob with Zika is that it can also pass human to human of course, and it's also a mutator.
2 billion will be infected in Africa and Asia according to Lancet. I'm still curious to know more about the Asia strain. Healthcare systems may be strained soon with the number of hospitalizations, apparently in Asia. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-37244577 |
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jacksdad
Executive Admin Joined: September 08 2007 Location: San Diego Status: Offline Points: 47251 |
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Vector-borne and H2H. Interesting times...
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"Buy it cheap. Stack it deep"
"Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
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carbon20
Moderator Joined: April 08 2006 Location: West Australia Status: Offline Points: 65816 |
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could this "NEW" Zika just be endemic to Asia and maybe does not cause problems with the host.... or as Jacksdad says another side affect of climate change ,which I agree with, been thinking of moving to Tasmania....... looking better every day....lol
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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
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jacksdad
Executive Admin Joined: September 08 2007 Location: San Diego Status: Offline Points: 47251 |
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Tasmania? That'll work. Sorry Albert, but it's got to be better than the AFT timeshare in Sierra Leone.
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"Buy it cheap. Stack it deep"
"Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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Albert
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Singapore is up to 242 cases
The fact remains that Reuters reported 7 hospitalizations when cases were at 41. Since Zika cases very rarely require medical treatment, let alone hospitalizations, stands to reason the Asian Zika may be significantly different. |
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carbon20
Moderator Joined: April 08 2006 Location: West Australia Status: Offline Points: 65816 |
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@Jacksdad lol
how many people get bitten/stung by mozzies every year ? when i was in Sri Lanka earlier this year the place is swarming with them, and its the Aedes mozzie, the type that carries Zika ,Denge, what makes them nasty is they feed in the sunlight the locals cant afford to keep spraying themselves with repelent .........
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Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
Marcus Aurelius |
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jacksdad
Executive Admin Joined: September 08 2007 Location: San Diego Status: Offline Points: 47251 |
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We have both Aedes Aegypti and Aedes Albopictus (yellow fever and asian tiger mosquitoes) here in SoCal now, and if I go downstairs into our condominium complex without bug repellent and wearing shorts, within 15 minutes I'm guaranteed to pick up a couple of bites even in the middle of the day. We have little in the way of foliage or landscaping, and no standing water or sprinklers. These things are ferocious
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"Buy it cheap. Stack it deep"
"Any community that fails to prepare, with the expectation that the federal government will come to the rescue, will be tragically wrong." Michael Leavitt, HHS Secretary. |
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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Earlier on Thursday, authorities said that analysis of two locally transmitted Zika cases showed that they were not recently imported from South America. Instead, the virus likely belongs to a strain circulating in Southeast Asia since the 1960s. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/zika-cases-rise-to-292-in-singapore-potential-new-cluster-at-ubi/3111030.html |
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Albert
Admin Joined: April 24 2006 Status: Offline Points: 47746 |
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When they use the term evolved from lineage, it sounds mutated. Clearly the South American strain was mutated, that much we know. Quite honestly, not sure I've seen a bug mutate this rapidly. What this means is that we will have two different strains circulating globally over time, along with future coinfections.
Zika in Singapore may be different from mutated Brazil strainThe joint-statement by MOH and the National Environment Agency (NEA) further said that the National Public Health Laboratory has worked with A*STAR’s Bioinformatics Institute to complete the sequencing analysis of the Zika virus in two patients from the Aljunied Crescent/ Sims Drive cluster. The results show that the virus belongs to the Asian lineage and likely evolved from the strain circulating in Southeast Asia. The virus from these two patients was not imported from South America. The research team will release more details shortly. Commenting on the sequencing analysis of the Zika virus in the two patients, Professor Paul Ananth Tambyah said information that the results showing that the strain is an Asian one and not South American, is very important information. Prof Tambyah is the President of the Society of Infectious Diseases (Singapore) and Secretary General of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection. He said that it is likely that this strain has been circulating in the region for decades. “That may mean that older Singaporeans and most of the people in the region may be immune from previous exposure,” he added. Pointing to a National Center for Biotechnology Information report, Prof Tambyah suggested that while the Asian strain is related to the South American strain via Polynesia, it is genetically distinct. Flaminia Catteruccia, associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in January of this year said that the Zika virus in Brazil may be mutated strain. She said: “If Zika is the causative agent behind the surge in microcephaly—and possibly also Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disease of the nervous system now on the rise among adults in Brazil—this may demonstrate that the virus has adapted to the human environment and may have mutated to become more pathogenic to humans.” The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light only last year in Brazil, which has since confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly. Commenting on the question of if the Asian strain would cause microcephaly, Prof Tambyah said: “That is the $64 million (or more) question. We will need to find out as it is likely that most of the historic infections in the past in the region have been in children not in women of childbearing age.” The Zika virus has been in Asia and the Pacific for roughly six decades but its symptoms had caused little concern in the area. The Associated Press reported recently that the virus appeared in Asia in the 1960s, “in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Pakistan, but no widespread cases have been reported and symptoms have typically been mild and similar to dengue and chikungunya, which may have helped mask its presence.” http://theindependent.sg/zika-in-singapore-may-be-different-from-mutated-brazil-strain/ |
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