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[Thorpe] Welcome to Beyond The Data.
I'm Dr. Phoebe Thorpe and here
with me today is Dr. Ron Rosenberg from the Division
of Vector Borne Diseases
and Associate Director for Science there.
Thank you very much for joining us.
I have to tell you Ron if in the '60s a science-fiction
author wrote a story about a disease that was transmitted
by mosquitoes that could,
if a woman got it while they were pregnant,
cause severe birth defects in their baby
and that half the people wouldn't know whether they had
the disease are not, nobody would believe that story.
But here we are with Zika.
So Zika is a vector borne disease meaning it has
three parts.
There is: the mosquito, the disease,
and the people who are infected.
Let's talk about all three of those.
Let's start about, start
with, how can people protect themselves
and prevent getting infected?
[Rosenberg] Well, of course the most important thing is simply
not to get bitten by the mosquito.
In the case of Zika virus we do not have any transmission
in the United States, in the continental United States.
But we do have transmission in Puerto Rico, American Samoa
and we have transmission now in South America
and throughout Central America.
So one way one can protect oneself is by taking
that into consideration when you travel especially
for pregnant women.
When you do travel, you must travel
to those places take the precautions of trying not
to get bitten by mosquitoes.
Using insect repellent, long sleeves, trying to stay
in air conditioning rather than being outside alot.
[Thorpe] And the other part about staying
in the air-conditioning is staying in places
where there are screens so the mosquitoes don't get indoors.
So what you've described is areas
where there's local transmission.
Meaning the mosquitoes are able to transmit it
from one person to another.
What about when the travelers return to United States?
They also need to do that same precautions
about avoiding being bitten by a mosquito
because they might not know that they got Zika
while they were traveling to a place
where it is being transmitted and it's for three weeks
that they have to continue those precautions.
[Rosenberg] Well, that would be kind of a general guidance
that we would want to give.
You're quite right that the majority of people
who are infected with Zika probably will have no symptoms
or very mild symptoms.
We don't yet know how infective those people are
to the mosquitoes.
So, it would be good idea if they come you come back
from an area that has transmission of Zika going on,
if you would continue to protect yourself
from getting bitten by mosquitoes.
[Thorpe] The other thing that's very unique about Zika is
that it's also sexually transmitted.
And so the recommendations are that if a traveler,
especially if a male travels to an area
where there's local transmission
that when they come back they protect their partner.
[Rosenberg] That's true.
And of course this would really be especially for men
with partners who are trying
to get pregnant or who are pregnant.
[Thorpe] And they should be preventing, either abstaining
or using condoms to prevent.
[Rosenberg] A condom would be a way of practicing safe sex
and preventing the virus from being transmitted.
[Thorpe] So let's shift to the mosquito.
Tell me something about the Aedes aegypti mosquito what do
we need to know?
[Rosenberg] Well the mosquito is very similar to mice
and cockroaches and houseflies in that it has evolved
over eons to live with humans.
So it lives in and around houses.
And it tends to lay its eggs in little bits of water.
Can be as small as a bottlecap, that are littered around houses,
flowerpots, dog's water bowl.
And, almost anything that you can imagine.
[Thorpe] So as their talking I'm thinking oh my gosh I,
I like to grow plants and I have a lot of the roots
in flowerpots inside my house.
So if I had a mosquito, an Aedes mosquito in my house,
is there something I need to do with that water?
Or I know there's been some recommendations
about dumping things out.
What what are those guidelines?
[Rosenberg] Yeah, I certainly would recommend
that you don't keep any unprotected standing water
in your house.
Especially in areas where we know Aedes aegypti breeds.
Because they can breed in that water.
The easiest things is just dump the water out once a week
or even more more often.
Or, put a cover of some kind over it
to prevent the mosquito from going in.
[Thorpe] So and then what about stuff for outside the house?
There are similar recommendations?
What else can people do?
[Rosenberg] Well, again, it's very useful
to not have standing water around the house,
especially in containers.
If you remove those and the mosquito has no place to breed.
It's probably not that useful to, for individuals
to spray around their houses.
But it might be useful if there are a lot of mosquitoes to use
an insecticide inside the house.
[Thorpe] Inside the house, ok and then I know there are
recommendations about which specific insecticides to,
to go to. Do you, is there a website for that?
[Rosenberg] Well the CDC website, the Zika website
for CDC will have a wealth of information
on how you can protect yourself and what you can do
about protecting your house and your property.
[Thorpe] Ok.
And your family too.
And so we talked about the mosquitoes and we talked
about the people who are infected,
what about the virus itself?
Everybody wants to know is there a vaccine?
[Rosenberg] There is no vaccine.
And that's what makes the protection from mosquito bites
so paramountly important.
[Thorpe] Do we foresee one coming?
[Rosenberg] I'd note that there are many people working
on a vaccine and so I certainly hope
that we will have a vaccine.
But, as you know vaccine development is not easy, takes a
long time and I don't foresee
our having a vaccine anytime certainly not for this summer
and probably not for next summer either.
[Thorpe] And there's no treatment either
for the disease once you're infected.
[Rosenberg] That's correct.
It's a typical viral disease
and we don't really have a therapy for it.
With the exception of the birth defects which is far
and away the most important aspect of Zika transmission,
It's quite a mild disease.
About 80% of the people who are infected
with Zika virus actually have no symptoms at all.
[Thorpe] That's 80% is a lot.
[Rosenberg] Yes it is.
But still they're infected.
[Thorpe] Yeah and infectious if they were bitten by a mosquito.
[Rosenberg] Probably,
although that has not been demonstrated completely yet.
But we are conservatively expecting that they will
in fact be infectious.
[Thorpe]And so that means that the 20% also get symptoms,
what symptoms do they get when they get Zika?
[Rosenberg] Well the symptoms are really quite general
and they're the same symptoms that you would have
for a lot of viral diseases.
So there is headache, fever, myalgia,
general muscular pain, sometimes joint pain.
There's one thing however, which is which is conjunctivitis
which is not terribly common with other viruses of this type.
But in general it's pretty hard to just diagnose
from the symptoms if someone has Zika.
[Thorpe] And that's part of the difficulty with it also is
that it if you had those very general symptoms you might not
know that you had Zika and you or it could look
like it's something else.
[Rosenberg] That's correct.
[Thorpe] Where else would people go if they wanted to find
out more about Zika and what to do to protect themselves
or about the disease or about the mosquitoes?
[Rosenberg] Well CDC has an excellent website
if I can say that. And if one goes to Zika and CDC
it's easy to find the website.
There's a huge amount of information
on there about the disease.
About preventing the disease.
About the mosquito vector and how to keep it from biting.
[Thorpe] Okay, thank you very much for joining us.
[Rosneberg] It's my pleasure.
[Thorpe] And thank you for joining us
for Beyond the Data, see you next time.
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