Zika probably hit Brazil in 2013, before World Cup: Study

Zika virus probably arrived in Brazil in mid-2013, researchers said Thursday in a study that says the World Cup soccer tournament and other stand-alone events probably aren’t to blame for the outbreak that’s been linked to serious birth defects in Latin America.

Researchers said genome sequencing shows the mosquito-borne virus likely landed between May and December 2013, meaning it preceded the soccer event that brought visitors from around the globe to the Amazon, Rio de Janeiro and other cities in 2014, and it hit before a championship canoe race later that year, according to an article in the journal Science.

Rather, researchers said it is more useful to look at broader travel patterns. For instance, air travel from Zika-affected areas to Brazil spiked by 50 percent in 2013.

The rapid spread of Zika virus in Latin America has been tied to a sharp uptick in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads, or microcephaly, and Guillian-Barre syndrome, which can lead to paralysis.

Scientists have also concluded that it can be transmitted sexually.

“In less than a year, the status of Zika has changed from a mild medical curiosity to a disease with severe public health implications,” World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan said this week.

Zika is a little-known virus that festered for decades in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region before globe-hopping to Latin America, where it has spread to more than 20 countries.

The Science article says the Tahitian national soccer team did travel to Brazil for the Confederations Cup — a sort of tuneup tournament for nations that host the World Cup the following year — in June 2013, yet its visit predated reported Zika cases in Tahiti by several months.

Though Zika isn’t transmitting locally within the U.S., scientists said that could change once temperatures climb.

As of Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recorded 273 cases among travelers who returned to the states from Zika-affected countries.

Puerto Rico has reported 317 cases of locally acquired Zika, putting it at the vanguard of the U.S. epidemic because its warm climes are hospitable to the type of mosquito that serves as the virus’s primary vector.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito also is found in several southern states, and the more-prevalent Aedes albopictus mosquito also is capable of carrying the virus.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi accused her Republican rivals Thursday of wasting time on their “dead-end special interest” agenda instead of freeing up billions of federal dollars to address the Zika threat and other emergencies.

“Unless Congress approves emergency resources soon, the man-made disaster of the Flint water crisis, the accelerating tragedy of opioid addiction, and the growing danger the Zika virus poses to expectant mothers will do irreversible damage to thousands of Americans,” Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said in a letter to her Democratic troops.

Congressional Republicans say the White House should spend money left over from the Ebola fight before it seeks a massive influx of new money for the Zika fight.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan affirmed that position earlier this week, as he grapples with a faction of conservatives who’ve balked at spending levels contained in a GOP-authored budget for fiscal 2017.

For its part, the administration isn’t budging either, saying it is committed to fighting the emerging Zika virus and flare-ups of Ebola in West Africa, even if the primary outbreak that killed over 11,000 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is over.

“As we have said, while we may be able to repurpose some existing Ebola funding without undermining our ongoing fight against the disease, that alone would not provide a sufficient enough response to the significant threat posed by Zika, which is why Congress should take action on the Administration’s emergency request for Zika funding,” the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said in a statement to The Washington Times.