Less than a year ago, most people were oblivious to what the Zika virus was. Now, however, with its name stamped on every headline, there are a lot of questions floating around: where exactly did this virus come from? what does it do? how will it affect us? The Science article, “Zika Virus: Your Questions Answered”, provides us, as the title suggests, with a simplified answer of these questions. The outbreak of the Zika virus began in one of the islands belonging to the Federated States of Micronesia, and eventually spread to Brazil and then other parts of South America. The reason this virus exploded so suddenly, is due to the growing population of a specific mosquito that carries this virus, and, surprisingly, humans themselves, who travel and take the virus with them. The chances of the virus spreading to the U.S are high, however because of environmental conditions and low mosquito counts, the outbreak would most likely be small. For now, any signs of these diseases in the U.S are “imported cases”, where infected individuals arrive in the country, not the mosquito itself. Contrary to the belief, it is not confirmed that the Zika virus is causing microcephaly, abnormal shrinkage in head size, in babies located around Zika infected areas. Manoel Sarno, a fetal medicine expert, has reported saying that “the pattern of brain damage he is seeing now looks distinct from microcephaly caused by other infections, such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) or rubella.” In the end, however, they cannot confirm that it is completely linked to Zika until tests results come out. There is currently no vaccine for the Zika virus, and it may take years to make one as well, due to the complexity and time required in order to perfect it. There are also very few symptoms associated with the Zika virus, the main concern is the effect on fetuses, so the push to make a vaccine has been relatively low.
I thought this article provided a lot of information about the Zika virus, a current event that some people may not know about. It’s important to society, because it is infecting so many people in Latin America and has the potential of spreading to other places as well. Another reason this may be significant to society, is because most of the time when epidemics break out, there is so much fear for one’s own health that simple facts are often missed. So learning about this virus, is important so that people don’t over react and can truly understand what it is.
I think this article was pretty well written and informative; I learned things about this virus that I hadn’t really known about before. I also think it provided a good amount of facts for a basic knowledge of the origin and development of the virus, which would also help with gaining more information. However, it was slightly choppy and organized into question and answer form, so sometimes topics jumped around. I would have also liked a few statistics about how many were infected, what future plan are for governments, and other such things. Overall, it was informative and clearly written.
Vogel, Gretchen, Jon Cohen, and Martin Ensernik. "Zika Virus: Your Questions Answered." Science. 2016. Web. 30 Jan. 2016. <http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/zika-virus-your-questions-answered >.
