VDU's blog: Zika virus

Showing posts with label Zika virus. Show all posts

Sunday, 4 December 2016

Zika virus-positive microcephaly in Colombia...

The latest epidemiological report (epidemiological week 47) from Colombia, which includes data on Zika virus (ZIKV) disease (ZVD; 20NOV2016-26NOV2016), has been produced by the Colombian National Institute for Health team.[1]

NOTE: While these data were reported the past epidemiological week (EW), they may not be from that week. See earlier post about possible reporting lag.

As of this report, 60 (+0 from last EW) live births have been diagnosed with congenital ZIKV syndrome (CZVS; microcephaly/central nervous system disorder), confirmed as being ZIKV positive. That represents 1.0% of all confirmed ZIKV positive mothers-a slowly but steadily rising proportion.

The change in confirmed ZIKV infection numbers when detected in
association with a microcephaly diagnosis, Colombia, compared to the
preceding week's total (yellow bars, right-hand axis). Those diagnoses still in question and under investigation are shown as yellow dots (left-hand axis).
Data are from [1]. Click on graph to enlarge.

It has now been 415 days, or 1 year, 1 month and 18 days, since ZIKV was first confirmed in Colombia on 16th October 2015.[5] Keep in mind that when talking about microcephaly - we have to think back in time to what insult or infection might have occurred during pregnancy. The counts of ZIKV occurring this week will have zero impact on what happened back then. Also keep in mind that Colombia may be reporting things differently from Brazil.[3]

The cumulative curve of confirmed ZVD cases
(green circles, left-hand axis) and the change in confirmed ZVD case
numbers when compared to the preceding week's total
(green bars, right-hand axis). Data from [1].
Click on graph to enlarge.

No new laboratory confirmed ZIKV detections have been reported in Colombia for eh 20th week (green graph, above).

Brazil first reported positive (but unconfirmed) laboratory tests for ZIKV disease on 29th April 2015. Brazil then started to report a rise in foetal anomalies (an initial 141), in the form of microcephaly on 30th October 2015. This was 184 days - or about 6 months later.[4] However, the genetic analyses suggest ZIKV was in Brazil from around 2013. It had a lot longer to get established. Perhaps this is the difference between Brazil and Colombia, given reports a growing 2,180 ZIKV congenital syndrome diagnoses [2] compared to Colombia's 60.

References...

Thursday, 17 November 2016

Another virus found to remain infectious on hard surfaces...

That headline doesn't bring in the readers. But - as far as we can tell having not been to the Nov 13-17 conference at which the preliminary data were presented during a seminar- it sums up the main finding of a new study on Zika virus (ZIKV).[1,2,4]

A 2016 Puerto Rico strain of the Asian lineage of ZIKV added to blood or a salt/protein solution was dried onto hard, solid surfaces.

ZIKV was able to be recovered from those surfaces up to 8 hours later when in the presence of blood, but not the salty solution.
Blood protected the virus.

ZIKV recovery was achieved after rehydrating the dried material and adding dilutions to cells in culture (Vero E6 cells). There was no news on infectivity at warm temperatures or on cloth, tissues or other porous surfaces on which enveloped viruses like ZIKV usually don't do so well. By the way, when I say "recovered", I mean virus coudl be grown using lab conditions, producing more infectious virus. So the findings show that enough ZIKV remained infectious (or that it retained some infectivity) to start a new infection in lab cultures, despite being held outside the host cells it needs to replicate.

Can ZIKV virus "live for hours" on surfaces? It's a virus - so it doesn't do much of anything outside of the living cell it completely depends upon for energy and raw materials ("dietary requirements"!).

The main takeaway is not that the study defined a new route of ZIKV transmission to add to mosquitoes, sex, intrauterine transmission and transfusion.[11] This might have been your interpretation if you'd read...

.."The Zika virus is able to infect people even after sitting out on a counter for several hours, according to new research" [6]..

The study is really about the observations that some disinfecting agents (bleach and peracetic acid) may not work well when the virus is spilt onto these surface in the presence of blood. Isopropyl alcohol and quaternary ammonium/alcohol agents were still effective though.[3] West Nile virus (WNV) and bovine viral diarrhoea virus (BVDV) responded similarly. This is not a new finding for viruses in general, but it's a good one to have. This can be used as a reference for risk assessments for a lab that works with ZIKV or for healthcare facilities that may be dealing with ZIKV infected patients and needing to know how to effectively clean up spills or contaminated rooms.

Should we worry about this new finding?

Does the finding that a ZIKV spill can remain infectious on surfaces add new knowledge to our understanding of the risks of acquiring ZIKV infection? Not as far as we know because we have very limited evidence that ZIKV can infect a human through their epithelial surfaces (mucous membranes) - like we did have for Ebola virus for example. Such a route of infection - from surface to mucous membrane -is the the implied risk here. In other words, getting enough of those spilt infectious viruses into your eye, mouth or onto/into your nether regions. Its possible, but not likley and we have little evidence that its happens.

We also have little evidence that ingesting something contaminated with infectious ZIKV or breathing it in can result in an infection.

As ever, little evidence does not equate to zero evinced - we just have few actual data either because theses are such rare events or because we really haven't looked much (my bet).

Rare ZIKV transmission events do happen...

We have seen documented some unusual/infrequent ZIKV transmission events. Laboratory acquired infections [5,12] for example and that case of a severely immunocompromised/chronically ill adult passing ZIKV to his healthy adult son, perhaps via mucous membrane exposure to a high ZIKV load.[8,9]

Infection of Dengue virus following exposure of a healthcare worker's mucous membranes to an infected IgM-positive patient's blood has also been described previously.[10]

This route of transmission is certainly in need of some serious study. That said, transmission was not what this study was investigating.

Infectious fluids such as blood, saliva, breast milk, urine or semen may come into contact with epithelial surfaces in a range of ways.

Studies that do set out to focus on this interaction and measure how often an infection results from this contact, are needed.

References...

Research finds Zika virus can live for hours on hard, non-porous surfaces
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-11/aaop-rfz111116.php
Zika virus can survive on hard surfaces for hours, researchers say
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2016/11/15/Zika-virus-can-survive-on-hard-surfaces-for-hours-researchers-say/9781479267969/
Study: Zika virus can linger on hard surfaces
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2016/11/study-zika-virus-can-linger-hard-surfaces
Inactivation of Zika Virus on a Hard Non-porous Surface
https://annual.aapsmeeting.org/event/member/309446
http://www.achd.net/pr/pubs/2016release/060916_zika.html
Zika can survive for hours on hard, nonporous surfaces
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/15/zika-can-survive-for-hours-on-hard-nonporous-surfaces.html
Zika virus can live for hours on hard, non-porous surfaces
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/11/161115164220.htm
Scientists just documented the first case of Zika spreading through physical contact
http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-just-documented-the-first-case-of-zika-spreading-through-physical-contact
Fatal Zika Virus Infection with Secondary Nonsexual Transmission
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1610613?query=featured_home&
Transmission of Dengue Virus without a Mosquito Vector: Nosocomial Mucocutaneous Transmission and Other Routes of Transmission
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/6/e56
Zika Virus Disease Cases - 50 States and the District of Columbia, January 1-July 31, 2016.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27631604
http://www.cdc.gov/zika/transmission/

Sunday, 9 October 2016

Zika virus in Colombia is very quiet - but undiagnosed rashy fever disease hasn't gone away...

Just a quick snapdate today.

Clinically suspect cases of Zika virus (ZIKV) infection have increased by 227-933/week for the past 12 weeks (red graph) - but none have been confirmed as ZIKV by the Colombian Institute of Health.

That seems to indicate just how terrible clinical diagnoses is. Otherwise, there's a testing or reporting problem.

The green graph below shows the flat line that indicates no new positives confirmed by laboratory testing.

Thankfully, we also continue to see few new cases of ZIKV-linked congenital syndromes. Although, this is also something of a conundrum.

Pregnant women are not being reported with many new confirmed or suspected ZIKV diagnoses - which makes sens of there is no rise in confirmed cases overall.

Sunday, 25 September 2016

Colombia Zika virus report, Epidemiological Week No. 37...

The latest epidemiological report from Colombia, which includes data on Zika virus disease (ZVD; 11SEP2016-17SEP2016), has been produced by the Colombian National Institute for Health team.[1]

NOTE: While these data were reported the past epidemiological week (EW), they may not be from that week. See earlier post about possible reporting lag.

As of this report, 41 (+1 from last EW) live births have been diagnosed with congenital ZIKV syndrome (CZVS; microcephaly/central nervous system disorder), confirmed as being ZIKV positive. That represents 0.70% of all confirmed ZIKV positive mothers-the 8th consecutive EW in which this proportion has risen.

Some back of napkin calculations looking at these numbers suggest that there are 7 deliveries for every 1,000 ZIKV-positive pregnant women that result in a ZIKV infected baby with microcephaly.

This assumes each neonate has been tested for ZIKV as [2] suggests. This figure has no clear understanding of the number of aborted or miscarried foetuses that are also occurring from ZIKV-positive pregnant women. Abortions and miscarriages will need a local baseline to understand the scope of this component of the impact of ZIKV infection.

246 other microcephaly diagnoses (up from 216 last week) are now under investigation - this value had also been rising very quickly until a recent dip and plateau. Its rise once again might suggest suspicious CZVS cases in Colombia are accruing faster than the pace of complete investigation can keep up with.

The graph below focuses on just the ZIKV-positive cases and those that remain under investigation, highlighting how the investigatory total has changed each week.

The change in confirmed ZIKV infection numbers when detected in
association with a microcephaly diagnosis, compared to the
preceding week's total (yellow bars, left-hand axis). Data are from [1].
Click on graph to enlarge.

It has now been 344 days, or 11 months 8 days, since ZIKV was first confirmed in Colombia on 16th October 2015.[2] Keep in mind that when talking about microcephaly - we have to think back in time to what insult or infection might have occurred during pregnancy. The counts of virus occurring this week will have zero impact on what happened back then. Also keep in mind that Colombia may be reporting things differently from Brazil.[3]

Brazil first reported positive (but unconfirmed) laboratory tests for Zika virus disease on 29th April 2015. Brazil then started to report a rise in foetal anomalies (an initial 141), in the form of microcephaly on 30th October 2015. This was 184 days - or about 6 months later.[4] However, the genetic analyses suggest Zika virus was in Brazil from around 2013. It had a lot longer to get established. Perhaps this is the difference between Brazil and Colombia.

But whatever the difference, there is a rise in microcephaly in Colombia compared to Brazil as we can see from the data in this Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) report...

401 cases counted up to EW 33 (now at EW 37) is 2.9X higher than the usual microcephaly figure per year for Colombia.

From PAHO report.[4]

References...

http://www.ins.gov.co/boletin-epidemiologico/Boletn%20Epidemiolgico/2016%20Boletin%20epidemiologico%20semana%2037.pdf
Zika Virus Disease in Colombia — Preliminary Report
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1604037#t=article
http://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/the-elephant-squeaked.html
PAHO Zika-Epidemiological Report | Colombia
http://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=35139&Itemid=270&lang=en

Sunday, 28 August 2016

Colombia Zika virus report, Epidemiological Week No. 33...

UPDATE No.1: 29AUG2016

The latest epidemiological report from Colombia, which includes data on Zika virus disease (ZVD; 14AUG2016-20AUG2016), has been produced by the Colombian National Institute for Health team.[1]
NOTE: While these data were reported the past epidemiological week, they may not be from that week. See earlier post about possible reporting lag.

Graph No.1. The cumulative curve of confirmed ZVD cases
(green circles, left-hand axis) and the change in confirmed ZVD case
numbers when compared to the preceding week's total
(green bars, right-hand axis). Data from [1].
Click on graph to enlarge.

Graph No. 1 shows that 0 new laboratory confirmed cases of ZVD were reported this week; the 6th week of this. The total sits at 8,826 or 9% of all clinically suspected Zika virus (ZIKV) detections.

Graph No.2. The cumulative curve of suspected ZVD cases
(pink circles, left-hand axis) and the change in suspected ZVD case
numbers when compared to the preceding week's total
(red bars, right-hand axis). Data from [1].
Click on graph to enlarge.

Graph No. 2 shows the change in suspected cases. These are not laboratory confirmed. The suspected ZVD cases continue to rise but have been slowing for weeks, adding 270 this week to total 93,551.

Graph No.3. The cumulative curve of clinically suspect (lilac triangles, left-hand axis) and confirmed ZIKV infections (lilac circles, left-hand axis) and the change in
confirmed ZIKV infection numbers when compared to the preceding week's total
(purple bars, right-hand axis). Now added the reported number of microcephaly cases
confirmed as ZIKV infected (yellow bars, right-hand axis). Data from [1].
Click on graph to enlarge.

Graph No. 3 shows that to epidemiological week (EW) No. 33, 11,752 suspected (+30 compared to last week) and 6,054 confirmed ZIKV infections (-2) have been identified in pregnant women.

As of this report, 34 (+5 from last EW) live births have been diagnosed with congenital ZIKV syndrome (CZVS; microcephaly/central nervous system disorder), confirmed as being ZIKV positive. That represents 0.53% of all confirmed ZIKV positive mothers-the 4th consecutive EW in which this proportion has risen.

Some back of napkin calculations looking at these numbers suggest that there are 5-6 deliveries for every 1,000 ZIKV-positive pregnant women that result in a ZIKV infected baby with microcephaly. This assumes each neonate has been tested for ZIKV as [6] suggests. This figure has no clear understanding of the number of aborted or miscarried foetuses that are also occurring from ZIKV-positive pregnant women. Abortions and miscarriages will need a local baseline to understand the scope of this component of the impact of ZIKV infection.

209 other microcephaly diagnoses (down from 254 last week) are now under investigation - this value has also been rising very quickly and suggests suspicious CZVS cases in Colombia are accruing faster than the pace of complete investigation can keep up with.

It now seems very likely that we can expect those bars to keep rising steeply in the coming weeks. The line is well and truly crossed.

Graph No. 4 below focuses on just the ZIKV-positive cases and those that remain under investigation, highlighting how the investigatory total has changed each week and been trending upwards since Epidemiological Week No. 14 and rising by +5 for 2 weeks in a row.

Graph No.4. The change in confirmed ZIKV infection numbers
when detected in association with a microcephaly diagnosis, compared
to the preceding week's total (yellow bars, left-hand axis). Data are from [1].
Click on graph to enlarge.

It has now been 317 days, or 10 months 12 days, since ZIKV was first confirmed in Colombia on 16th October 2015.[2] Colombia is currently carrying the next biggest load of suspected ZVD cases [8] (although more confirmed in Puerto Rico. NB: not all of the "Casos confirmados" are lab confirmed, but I'm told most are).[3] Keep in mind that when talking about microcephaly - we have to think back in time to what insult or infection might have occurred in the first or second trimester (probably-still not definitive). The counts of virus occurring this week will have zero impact on what happened back then. Also keep in mind that Colombia may be reporting things differently from Brazil.[5,7]

Brazil first reported positive (but unconfirmed) laboratory tests for Zika virus disease on 29th April 2015. Brazil then started to report a rise in foetal anomalies (an initial 141), in the form of microcephaly on 30th October 2015. This was 184 days - or about 6 months later.[4]

References...

Updates...

Clarified Puerto Rico has more confirmed cases than Colombia but fewer suspected

Saturday, 20 August 2016

Tests and temps...

From [10]

It's been about 5 weeks since Brazil updated its microcephaly-related-to-Zika-virus reporting index page.

The last post listed (a couple of others made their way out via other channels) was from epidemiological week (EW) No. 26.

For comparison, Colombia is about to post data for EW No. 32. [12]

Interestingly, Colombia's National Institute of Health has not seen any new laboratory confirmed Zika virus disease cases during that same period - so perhaps Brazil is not seeing any either?

Temperature graphs (in Celsius) from
accuweather.com.
Top-Miami Beach, Florida.
Bottom-Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Meanwhile, more of the US state of Florida is seeing local Zika virus spread.[4,5,6] If we look at the temperature graphs we can see that Miami Beach (around 32'C) is certainly a lot warmer and holding more steady than Rio (around 24'C) in August 2916.

High and fluctuating temperatures are important for flavivirus multiplication in mosquitoes but for the mosquitoes themselves, particularly Aedes aegypti, they can live for about the same period (around 3 weeks) when conditions suit, whether at 26'C or 30'C.[12,13]

As I was recently taught by Rebbeca C Christofferson and Anthony Willson, viral loads do better in mosquitoes living at an optimal temperature. But when more Dengue virus for example, is replicating throughout the mosquito, that can have an effect on the length of their lives, even if not having an immediate impact on mortality.[14]

When you stop and think about it there is a lot going on for a mosquito when it takes a big blood meal.

There could be a huge rapid weight gain, and there can be a 20'C temperature difference between the host's blood and the insect's temperature - that's a big shock at any size! There is also a big osmotic imbalance (difference in osmotic pressure due to the concentration of dissolved solids in the host's blood versus that in the insect's hemolymph [8,9]) and there's a need to get rid of toxic metabolites.[1]

Have you seen that big drop of excreted fluid attached to some species of mosquito's butt? It appears once feeding has started and is something they excrete (urine and concentrated red blood cells; a process called prediuresis) to help them balance osmolarity, offset weight gain and sometimes to regulate their temperature through evaporation.[2,7]

Some mosquito species retain the drop ('drop-keeping') making use of evaporative cooling, some emit new drops.[7] As far as I can tell so far, Aedes species don't make use of the drop for cooling. Male mosquitoes don't heat up because they don't feed on blood so they rely on environmental temperatures for heating and cooling.[7]

So much more reading to be done (apologies for errors above - I'm still learning about mozzies) - just not of data from Brazil.

References...

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

Public Zika virus data can be volatile Zika virus data...

So it turns out I hadn't had a stroke or started losing my mind.

....10 hours earlier....

I received an answer to my questions tweeted at the Colombian National Institute of Health asking why Colombia's Zika virus (ZIKV) data had been revised downward. Was it simply data cleaning? How did it happen? Why now? As you can see from the drop in weekly figures (that last red bar), it was a quite a cleanup if so - a drop in 5,000 cases!

Graph No. 1. The cumulative curve of suspected ZVD cases
(pink circles, left-hand axis) and the change in suspected ZVD case
numbers when compared to the preceding week's total
(red bars, right-hand axis) including the original
epidemiological week No. 28 data. Data from [1].
Click on graph to enlarge.

Graph No.2. The cumulative curve of confirmed ZIKV infections

(lilac circles, left-hand axis) and the change in confirmed ZIKV infection

numbers when compared to the preceding week's total

(purple bars, right-hand axis). Now added the reported umber of microcephaly cases

confirmed as ZIKV infected (yellow bars, right-hand axis) including the original

epidemiological week No. 28 data. To account for adjustments

that take cases away when there is no weekly case growth, a negative

value - the y-axes now allow for negative values. Data from [1].

Click on graph to enlarge.

Dr Fernando Ruiz, the Deputy Minister of Public Health and Service Delivery Colombia kindly engaged me on Twitter, telling me that each week their data get adjusted to account for current and former week's lags. I sent him Graph 1 above to try and reiterate that this past epidemiological week had been a bit different than any other this year. When he bounced some numbers at me something seemed weird - these were different from what I'd recorded.

Sure enough, my spreadsheet no longer matched up with the numbers I'd harvested on Sunday morning (my time, AEST) from the Week No.28 Colombian Epidemiological Bulletin.

Weird. My usual first reaction - it's all my fault. Had I been daydreaming when I copied the numbers across? Had my Excel formulae betrayed me (never!)? Had the kids edited my blog? Had the cat sneakily deleted and typed a few figures. Had I had a small cerebral incident? Am I having one now?

Am I doomed to never know the answer?

Thankfully, @FluTrackers had a post from @thelonevirologi including charts and numbers from the Colombian data and sure enough a key figure was there that was common to both our datasets - but no longer anywhere to be found on the Colombian bulletin - 7 166 confirmed laboratory cases. And, coming to the rescue of my sanity, @thelonevirologi still had the original PDF - the data had indeed been released wrongly and then corrected and re-released by the National Institute of Health. Phew.

Public data are volatile

This really is a stark reminder that public data are volatile and can change.

Sometimes that change may not be identified by the publisher - no version numbering and no note to say what changed and why. Simple stuff to add, but sometimes completely absent.

We bloggers, who live in the 'grey literature' world (and rarely attract citations from the scientific literature), may be better at understanding the need to own our changes and mistakes. We often try to correct them in a way that is obvious to those who use or even rely on our information. This is just good practice.

And what about Colombia's ZIKV numbers this week?

As to the updated ZIKV figures from Colombia, the revised versions show that clinically suspect ZIKV disease cases do in fact continue to rise (+933) and that there were 22 more confirmed cases among pregnant women added this past week. No general ZIKV disease confirmations were reported after the 176 from last week and no new cases of ZIKV-associated microcephaly were added this week after 4 consecutive weeks of growth. Perhaps this is one of those laboratory 'off weeks'.

Colombia notes that it expects ZIKV-related microcephaly cases to increase in September and October 2016 as more pregnant women come to term.[2] A nearly 8% increase in (known) miscarriages has already been reported in Colombia but no rise in the use of abortion clinics which might otherwise "hide" the congenital impact of ZIKV infection not registered as microcephaly.[3]

Given these ZIKV infections are still being suspected and detected, it seems very strange that Colombia picked now to declare it's epidemic over.[2] For certain, numbers have been slowing each week for at least 6 weeks but they are still being reported (perhaps just lagging older results?).

A quick summary: sexual events play a role in ZIKV transmission, persistence of virus is real at several sites, we have not yet examined all possible transmission avenues (oral and respiratory epithelium, eyes, ingestion) and we still don't know whether the 80% of cases that are asymptomatic play any role in human-to-mosquito or human-to-human transmission nor whether that 80% figure still holds today.

Perhaps the Colombians simply mean that the ZIKV numbers per week have fallen below some arbitrary internal epidemic threshold value now. Maybe cases are still being identified, just not at epidemic levels or rates. I'd have thought a threshold would take more than a year and a bit to determine for a new disease with so much still unknown, but perhaps not.

Graph No. 3. The corrected cumulative curve of suspected ZVD cases
(pink circles, left-hand axis) and the change in suspected ZVD case
numbers when compared to the preceding week's total
(red bars, right-hand axis) including the updated
epidemiological week No. 28 data. Data from [1].
Click on graph to enlarge.

Graph No.4. The cumulative curve of confirmed ZIKV infections
(lilac circles, left-hand axis) and the change in confirmed ZIKV infection
numbers when compared to the preceding week's total
(purple bars, right-hand axis). Now added the reported umber of microcephaly cases
confirmed as ZIKV infected (yellow bars, right-hand axis) including the updated
epidemiological week No. 28 data. To account for adjustments
that take cases away when there is no weekly case growth, a negative
value - the y-axes now allow for negative values. Data from [1].
Click on graph to enlarge.

References...

Sunday, 19 June 2016

Colombia Zika virus report, Epidemiological Week No. 23...

The latest epidemiological report from Colombia, which includes data on Zika virus disease (ZVD; 05JUN2016-11JUN2016), has been produced by the Colombian National Institute for Health team.[1]
NOTE: While these data are from those reported the past epidemiological week, they may not be from that week. See earlier post about possible reporting lag.

Graph No. 1 shows that zero new laboratory confirmed cases of ZVD were reported this week-this must be an "off" week for laboratory reporting - you can see others in the above graph where the green bars sit at zero. The total still rests at 8,221 or 10% (the highest proportion reported to date) of all clinically suspected Zika virus (ZIKV) detections.

Graph No. 2 shows the change in suspected cases. These are not laboratory confirmed. The suspected ZVD cases continue to rise in a linear fashion, adding 2,086 this week to total 85,021.

Graph No.3. The cumulative curve of confirmed ZIKV infections
(lilac circles, left-hand axis) and the change in confirmed ZIKV infection
numbers when compared to the preceding week's total
(purple bars, right-hand axis). Now added the reported umber of microcephaly cases
confirmed as ZIKV infected (yellow bars, right-hand axis). To account for adjustments
that take cases away when there is no weekly case growth, a negative
value - the y-axes now allow for negative values. Data from [1].
Click on graph to enlarge.

Graph No. 3 shows that to Epidemiological Week No. 23, 10,704 suspected (+268 compared to last week) and still 5,420 confirmed ZIKV infections (+zero-no lab results this week) have been identified in pregnant women.

As of this report, 6 (+0 from last 2 weeks) live births have been diagnosed with microcephaly/central nervous system disorders and were reported as being ZIKV positive; 81 (up from 69 last week and the highest value to date - could things be picking up pace?) other microcephaly diagnoses are now under investigation.[1] That represents 0.11% of all confirmed ZIKV positive mothers.

Graph No. 4 below focuses on just these ZIKV-positive cases and those that remain under investigation, highlighting how the investigatory total has changed each week, but has also been trending upwards since Epidemiological Week No. 14. This may be a marker of a rise in microcephaly and other congenital disorders.

It has now been 247 days, or 8 months 3 days, since ZIKV was first confirmed in Colombia on 16th October 2015.[2] Colombia is currently carrying the next biggest load of Zika virus disease cases, after Brazil.[3] Keep in mind that when talking about microcephaly - we have to think back in time to what insult or infection might have occurred in the first or second trimester (probably-still not definitive). The counts of virus occurring this week will have zero impact on what happened back then. Also keep in mind that Colombia may be reporting things different from Brazil.[5]

Brazil first reported reported positive (but unconfirmed) laboratory tests for Zika virus disease on 29th April 2015. Brazil then started to report a rise in foetal anomalies (an initial 141), in the form of microcephaly on 30th October 2015. This was 184 days - or about 6 months later.[4]

References...

Sunday, 12 June 2016

Colombia Zika virus report, Epidemiological Week No. 22...

The latest epidemiological report, which includes data on Zika virus disease (ZVD; 22MAY2016-04JUN2016), has been produced by the Colombian National Institute for Health team.[1]
NOTE: While these data are from those reported the past epidemiological week, they may not be from that week. See earlier post about possible reporting lag.

Graph No. 1 shows that 639 more laboratory confirmed cases of ZVD were reported this week than last. The total now rests at 8,221 or 10% (the highest proportion reported to date) of all clinically suspected Zika virus (ZIKV) detections.

Graph No. 2 shows the change in suspected cases. These are not laboratory confirmed. The suspected ZVD cases continue to rise in a linear fashion, adding 1,572 this week to total 82,935.

Graph No. 3 shows that to Epidemiological Week No. 22, 10,436 suspected (+17 compared to last week) and 5,420 confirmed ZIKV infections (+529) have been identified in pregnant women.

As of this report, 6 (+0 from last week) live births have been diagnosed with microcephaly/central nervous system disorders and were reported as being ZIKV positive; 69 (up from 48 last week) other microcephaly diagnoses are now under investigation.[1] That represents 0.11% of all confirmed ZIKV positive mothers (as drop from last week). Graph No. 4 below focuses on just these positive cases.

It has now been 239 days, or 7 months 26 days, since ZIKV was first confirmed in Colombia on 16th October 2015.[2] Colombia is currently carrying the next biggest load of Zika virus disease cases, after Brazil.[3] Keep in mind that when talking about microcephaly - we have to think back in time to what insult or infection might have occurred in the first or second trimester (probably-still not definitive). The counts of virus occurring this week will have zero impact on what happened back then.

Brazil first reported reported positive (but unconfirmed) laboratory tests for Zika virus disease on 29th April 2015. Brazil then started to report a rise in foetal anomalies (an initial 141), in the form of microcephaly on 30th October 2015. This was 184 days - or about 6 months later.[4]

References...

Static pages

Sunday, 4 December 2016

Thursday, 17 November 2016

Sunday, 9 October 2016

Sunday, 25 September 2016

Sunday, 28 August 2016

Saturday, 20 August 2016

Wednesday, 27 July 2016

Sunday, 19 June 2016

Sunday, 12 June 2016