LARRY ROMANOFF -- ZIKA -- June 12, 2020

ZIKA

By Larry Romanoff

June 12, 2020

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The ZIKA virus is named after the ZIKA forest in Uganda, where it was first discovered, and is a type of flavivirus, closely related to those which cause more serious diseases like dengue and yellow fever. ZIKA normally produces symptoms such as fever or conjunctivitis and sometimes joint pain, but typically so mild that the symptoms last for only a few days and most people don’t even know they have it. The ZIKA is not contagious but is transmitted by mosquitoes, which means you must be bitten by an infected mosquito to contract it. Africans have developed antibodies to the virus and are mostly immune, but Westerners have no such immunity and for them there is no vaccine or cure for the ZIKA virus, though none is generally necessary.