OUTBREAK - Coronavirus (COVID-19)

FOR CONSPIRACY THEORISTS:  Is COVID-19 a natural virus or an escaped bio-weapon?  Will China turn it into a weapon?  Note that there is NO evidence of this theory.

"Can China’s information about the novel coronavirus be trusted?" PBS NewsHour 2/10/2020

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SUMMARY:  China is struggling to contain an outbreak of novel coronavirus that has now spread in small numbers to at least 25 other countries or territories.  Both the official death toll and the number of confirmed cases have doubled in recent days, and there are doubts about the accuracy of data the Chinese government is reporting.  William Brangham is joined by Georgetown University’s Lawrence Gostin.

"How novel coronavirus outbreak has disrupted life across China" PBS NewsHour 2/11/2020

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SUMMARY:  China continues to struggle with novel coronavirus and is only now starting to allow scientists and public health officials from outside to assist in its efforts.  While the majority of infections and fatalities are centered in Hubei province, the illness is increasingly being felt across China.  William Brangham talks to The Economist’s David Rennie for an inside look at how the country is coping.

"In China, political fallout from novel coronavirus outbreak continues" PBS NewsHour 2/13/2020

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SUMMARY:  As novel coronavirus continues to plague China, the country’s president, Xi Jinping, fired two high-level Communist Party officials in the region at the outbreak's center.  The move comes as both death toll and number of cases are surging, partly as a result of changes in the way infections are defined.  John Yang sits down with Jude Blanchette of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

THE LEADING EDGE - The Double-Edged Sword of Science

"This gene editing milestone raises big ethical questions" PBS NewsHour 8/2/2017

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SUMMARY:  For the first time in the U.S., a human embryo has been successfully edited to correct an inherited condition.  By snipping out the gene that causes a specific heart disease, scientists also ensured the disease could not be passed down.  But the milestone raises significant scientific and ethical questions.  Hari Sreenivasan speaks with Jessica Berg of Case Western Reserve University Law School.

PANDEMIC - Zika Research Update

"RESEARCHERS CONFIRM ZIKA, BRAIN DEFECT LINK" by Bradley J. Fikes, San Diego Union-Tribune 5/12/2016

NOTE:  This is from the online version of the newspaper, so no link to article.

UC San Diego, Brazilian scientists infect pregnant mice with virus and detect harm to their babies

Scientists from Brazil and UC San Diego said Wednesday that they have produced the world's first direct evidence of how the Zika virus causes brain defects.  Previous research had inferred this mechanism, but never demonstrated it in the lab.

In their new study, the Brazilian and San Diego scientists worked with pregnant mice.  They found that the Brazilian strain of Zika crossed the placenta and into the mice's pups, reducing growth in the brain and the rest of the body.

The brain defects were similar to the microcephaly reported in some human babies whose mothers were infected with Zika during pregnancy.

Additionally, the researchers discovered that the virus caused similar damage in brain “organoids,” which are peasized structures grown from human stem cells.  In essence, the study confirmed earlier findings of Zika's effects on brain organoids, including a report published this month by UC San Diego scientists.

But one strain of mice resisted Zika, the latest study found.  The pups of those mice didn't show any signs of infection and tested negative for the virus.  This suggests that the virus never crossed the placenta in those cases.

This particular strain mounted a “robust” antiviral immune response, the report said.  If the effect can be extended to humans, it would help explain why some Zika-infected mothers give birth to newborns who have no detectable brain damage.

Virus has already achieved pandemic status

The new study was published in the journal Nature.  It can be found at Nature International Weekly.  Zika's stealthy attack on fetal brains makes it especially worrisome.  Unlike Ebola's direct and deadly assault, Zika is rarely fatal.  Most infected people don't feel any symptoms.  So if a pregnant woman is infected, the real damage may not be known until her baby is born.  Another concern: Zika can harm fetal development at all stages of a woman's pregnancy.  The Brazilian strain of Zika is more aggressive than the African strain, said UC San Diego's Alysson Muotri, one of the new study's authors and a Brazilian native.  The two strains share about 90 percent of their genes, meaning that the 10 percent difference is responsible for making the Brazilian version more dangerous.

That fact represents a monumental challenge to Brazil, which is set to host the Summer Olympics in less than three months.  People will travel to Brazil from around the world, possibly become exposed to Zika and carry the virus back to their home countries.  Zika is usually carried by mosquitoes of the genus Aedes, but it also can be transmitted sexually.  The virus has already achieved pandemic status, and it has been reported throughout the United States.  San Diego County's first case this year was announced in February.  The patient was a woman who had become infected while in Colombia.  She was not pregnant at the time and has recovered fully, public health officials said.

From Jan. 1 through May 4, a total of 472 Zika cases were reported in the U.S., including 40 in California, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Pregnant women were involved in 44 of those cases, and 10 of the infections were sexually transmitted.

There has been no “homegrown” Zika infection by mosquitoes in the United States, health officials said.

However, the potential for transmission is present in the form of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito.  The species, a relatively recent arrival in San Diego County, is black with white stripes.  Scientists not involved in the new study said it meshes with results from previous research and shows a way forward for potential counter- measures.

“This report has revealed a new approach to investigate the pathological outcomes of Zika infection in innovative experimental models and is the first of its kind,” said medical virologist Grant Hill-Cawthorne at the University of Sydney in Australia.  His comments were provided by the Australian Science Media Center.  “It has shown the experimental models used can reflect the clinical presentation of Zika infection and thus serve as an excellent basis to understand the disease process and evaluate strategies for prevention,” Hill-Cawthorne said.  Dr. Nathalie MacDermott, a clinical research fellow at Imperial College London, said: “The study lends further support to the likelihood that the damage to the infant resulting in microcephaly, microencephaly and brain malformations occurs during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy, a time when the infant's brain is rapidly developing and nerve cells are migrating to the correct regions.”  Her comments were provided by the United Kingdom-based Science Media Center.

GULF COAST - 'Zika is Coming'

"Is a perfect storm of Zika virus conditions coming to the Gulf Coast?" PBS NewsHour 4/18/2016

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SUMMARY:  In the wake of the CDC's revelation that Zika virus causes microcephaly in infants, doctors are grappling with the thorny issue of whether they should recommend that women in high-risk areas avoid getting pregnant this summer.  Hari Sreenivasan talks to Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College for more on how medical experts are confronting the prospect of Zika in the U.S.

HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour):  Worries over a potential Zika outbreak in the U.S., and who may suffer a bigger impact.

Public health officials have been increasingly concerned about the virus spreading via mosquitoes this summer.  One report even suggested government officials were split over whether to advise women to avoid pregnancy in areas where Zika is circulating.

In an op-ed titled “Zika Is Coming,” Dr. Peter Hotez focused on some of these questions and what it might mean in some cities in the southern parts of the country.  He’s the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and a pediatrician and microbiologist at Texas Children’s Hospital.  I interviewed him from our New York studios.

I want to read you the first sentence of the op-ed you wrote in (link to op-ed) The New York Times recently.  It said: “If I were a pregnant woman living on the Gulf Coast or in Florida in an impoverished neighborhood and city like Houston, New Orleans, Miami, Biloxi, Mississippi, or Mobile, Alabama, I would be nervous right now.”

Explain.

DR. PETER HOTEZ, Texas Children’s Hospital:  Well, the reason I made that statement, Hari, was because what we know, where this terrible birth defect, microcephaly, is happening.

It happens when pregnant women are bitten by the Aedes mosquitoes.  So, the first requirement is, it has to be a part of the world where we have the Aedes mosquito.  And, also, the other component that not many people appropriate is both crowding and poverty.

And the reason why poverty is so important is because women who live in poverty have increased exposure to mosquitoes because of absent — or broken window screens, collected garbage, environmental degradation near the home that breeds mosquitoes.

And so what you have on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. is the perfect storm of all three factors, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the extreme poverty and crowding, that you would find in Northeastern Brazil, which is the epicenter of this epidemic or what we have seen moving into Colombia.

So, for all the reasons we’re seeing microcephaly cases appear in Brazil and Colombia, I believe we’re going to see on the Gulf Coast, especially as we move into the warmer months, when our mosquito numbers start to rise.

So we’re already finding Aedes aegypti mosquitoes on the Gulf Coast, including here in Houston.  But I’m very worried that as we go into the warmer months, those mosquito numbers are going to incline, with it, the poorer neighborhoods on Gulf Coast cities, such as Houston, New Orleans, others, are really going to be affected by Zika.

HARI SREENIVASAN:  So, what’s that timeline of progression that you see?  Not all mosquitoes have Zika.  It will take some time for some of them to get Zika, and then some of them to bite people, some of those people to have symptoms, some of those symptoms to be severe.

DR. PETER HOTEZ:  Well, arboviruses, viruses transmitted by mosquitoes are not new to the Gulf Coast.  We have experienced a number of epidemics of arboviral infections.

For instance, in 2003, Houston experienced an epidemic dengue fever caused by the same Aedes aegypti mosquito.  And what we found was, those numbers started to rise in May and into June, and with it, we then started seeing a dengue outbreak back in 2003.

BRAZIL - Race to Resolve Zika Virus

"In Brazil, a race to solve the mysteries of Zika virus" PBS NewsHour 2/8/2016

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SUMMARY:  In Brazil, health workers are searching for the smoking gun link between the virus and infant microcephaly, while troops attack mosquito breeding grounds and mothers of affected children face the long-term consequences. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Now to the growing effort to rein in the mosquito-borne Zika virus spreading through parts of South and Central America.  It is suspected of being the cause devastating birth defects in children who are born to women who become infected during pregnancy.

Our science correspondent, Miles O’Brien, has been reporting on developments from Brazil, which has been hard-hit by the virus.

Tonight, he looks at ways doctors and scientists are racing to get ahead of the outbreak.

MILES O’BRIEN (NewsHour):  It’s Carnival week in Brazil, the raucous run-up to Lent, when people take to the streets to party their worries away.  But this year, it’s harder to mask reality, as a frightening epidemic also marches through the nation.

DR. ADRIANA SCAVUZZI, Obstetrician, IMIP:  They come to us asking many questions, and we cannot say almost nothing with 100 percent sure.  What we have to do is to support them.  That’s all we have to do.

MILES O’BRIEN:  Dr. Adriana Scavuzzi is an obstetrician at one of the largest hospitals in Recife, the epicenter of a fast-moving outbreak of the Zika virus; a flavivirus virus in the same family as Yellow Fever, West Nile, and Dengue.

In each case, the virus hitchhikes on a tenacious day-biting mosquito called Aedes Aegypti that has origins in Africa and is now spreading throughout the globe.  Two-month-old Nicollas Pereira has an abnormally small head, microcephaly.

Doctors at this hospital would normally see 10 cases like this a year.  But starting in August, there were suddenly 10 to 20 a month.

Dr. Ana Van Der Linden is a pediatric neurologist.  She says Nicollas must contend with an array of permanent mental and physical problems.

DR. ANA VAN DER LINDEN, Pediatric Neurologist, IMIP (through interpreter):  With this impairment, we see that reflex reactions are good, but voluntary actions that depend on better brain development will be impaired.  He will have bad motor skills and mental development.  He can also have abnormal vision, hearing disorders, and bone malformation.