What to know about the Oropouche virus, also known as sloth fever

A virus spread by bugs has sickened over 20 individuals traveling back to the united states from cuba in recent months, according to a report released by federal health officials on Tuesday. They all suffered from sloth fever, a condition caused by the Oropouche virus. There is no proof that it is spreading throughout the US and no one has died from it. However, authorities are alerting American physicians to watch out for the virus among visitors from South America and Cuba.

What is Oropouche virus?
The virus known as Orophouche is indigenous to tropical forests. It was called after a local hamlet and wetlands when it was initially discovered in 1955 in a 24-year-old forest worker on the island of Trinidad. The reason it's commonly referred to as "sloth fever" is that when researchers initially discovered the virus in a three-toed sloth, they assumed sloths played a significant role in its propagation from insects to other animals.

How Does it Spread?
Humans get the virus via some kinds of mosquitoes and from tiny biting insects known as midges. Although person-to-person transmission of the virus has not been reported, humans are thought to have contributed to its spread to towns and cities by being infected when visiting wooded regions.

How many cases have there been?
Large-scale outbreaks in Amazonian regions, where the virus was known to reside, as well as in new places in South America and the Caribbean, were traced back to it starting late last year. There have been reports of about 8,000 locally acquired cases in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, cuba, and Peru.

It has been diagnosed in a few tourists in europe and the United States. Twenty of the 21 cases that have been recorded in the united states so far—one in New York and the other in Florida—had all been in cuba, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday. Prior to this, european health officials claimed to have discovered 19 instances, almost all of which were tourists.
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Kokila Chokkanathan

30/08/2024 01:51 PM