Sep 02 2016
A vaccine is being given to 160 people in Puerto Rico, and a preliminary study has identified two existing drugs that seem to protect human brain cells from the virus. The vaccine contains a synthetic DNA fragment similar to one in the virus itself. Hopefully, people who receive it will develop immune protection against Zika.
Aug 02 2016
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have confirmed that Zika is already a sexually transmitted disease. Public health experts now know that Zika can be passed in bodily fluids. So far, in the continental United States, 15 cases of Zika are confirmed to have been transmitted by sexual contact. This has been reported …
Jul 25 2016
A common and much less exotic virus than Zika is killing hundreds of babies and leaving thousands with severe birth defects, including abnormally small heads and brains, hearing loss and cerebral palsy. It is the cytomegalovirus (CMV). This virus is a much greater global problem than Zika, but receives much less attention.
Feb 02 2016
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on January 28th that the Zika virus is “spreading explosively.” The virus was unknown to most people until recently, and is one of the scary new viruses that emerge abruptly in the modern world. The causes for that are complex and have developed, unnoticed, over years or decades.