The Brazilian doctor who first linked the Zika
virus to brain damage in babies warns that rich countries are not safe
from the disease, urging them to increase research funding.
Obstetrician Adriana Melo
was the first person to make the connection between an outbreak of Zika
in Brazil and a surge in babies born with microcephaly, or abnormally
small heads.
Melo, who works at the heart
of the outbreak in the northeast Brazilian city of Campina Grande, sent
her first sample of amniotic fluid in for Zika tests on November 10,
2015.
The positive result -- the first of
many for mothers whose babies had the debilitating neurological
condition -- sparked a chain reaction of alarm.
It culminated in February, when the World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency over the link between Zika and microcephaly.
Melo said the world has not done enough since then to understand and fight this "neglected" disease.
She
urged wealthy countries to wake up to recent findings that Zika, which
is typically spread by tropical mosquitoes, can also be transmitted
sexually, and possibly through other bodily fluids.
"We know there are other transmission vectors and that (Zika) can break out anywhere, in any country," she told AFP in an interview in Rio de Janeiro, on the sidelines of an international conference on the disease.
"It's a disease that doesn't interest
rich countries much because they think it won't reach them. But it's a
risk to underestimate this virus. I am very afraid of viruses," she said.
Melo
called for more clinical studies of Zika, which has been linked not
only to microcephaly in babies but also a potentially deadly
neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome in adults.
There
is currently no treatment or vaccine for the virus, whose mild,
flu-like symptoms belie its potentially devastating side effects.
'Here to stay'
Brazil
has been the country hit hardest by Zika, with 1.5 million people
infected and more than 2,000 babies born with brain damage.
The
disease, which originated in Africa, has swept Latin America and the
Caribbean since it was first detected in Brazil last year.
"Traveler's
Zika" -- cases brought back by people who spent time in affected
countries -- also reached Europe and the United States.
Then, last July, US health authorities announced that locally transmitted Zika cases had been detected in Florida.
Meanwhile, warnings were emerging that tropical mosquitoes were not the only vector for the disease.
In February 2016, the United States reported a case of sexual transmission in Texas. Dozens more followed.
Recent research indicates the virus could also be spread through tears or sweat.
Melo
warned health authorities not to take their eyes off the epidemic, even
though the number of cases has diminished as mosquito populations have
declined during the southern hemisphere winter.
"We need to use this moment of calm, after the explosion of 2015, to push ahead with research on the virus," she said.
"The
current reduction in cases doesn't mean the virus isn't there. We still
know very little about it.... We don't know if the virus can reactivate
or mutate, like dengue fever, which now has four sub-types," she said.
"We need to better study this disease, which is here to stay."
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