The world’s scientific community is focused on how to improve detection and responses to emerging diseases such as Zika virus and Ebola. So what can we learn from the most recent large-scale outbreaks?
Acute disseminated encephalomylitis can lead to coma.
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To tackle Zika and other viral outbreaks, we need to focus not only on the pathology of the disease, but also on the global political and economic architecture.
A new arrival in Australian backyards may increase the risks of mosquito-borne disease outbreaks.
Better access to birth control and safe, legal abortions in Latin America could save lives. But carving out Zika-related exceptions in existing restrictions might not go far enough to achieve this.
How much will it cost to fumigate the streets of Haiti?
Reuters
How does an institution like the World Bank come to put a price tag on a virus like Zika or any other health calamity?
A book about Aedes aegypti mosquitoes is seen next to larvae in a laboratory conducting research on preventing the spread of the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases, at the Ministry of Public Health in Guatemala City.
Josue Decavele/Reuters
Satellite imaging can locate mosquito-friendly environments, allowing us to predict the advance of diseases they carry.
Even if Zika sometimes causes pregnant mothers to have babies with microcephaly, this does not necessarily mean every infected mother would have an affected baby.
coniferconifer/Flickr
Despite all the hype around Zika, crucial questions remain unanswered. How great is the risk that infection during pregnancy would result in a baby with microcephaly? And what can be done to prevent this?
Zika is an enormous challenge for Pope Francis and the Catholic Church.
Reuters/pool
Despite high rates of infection, the Zika outbreak would not have been particularly alarming had it not been for the sudden and – apparently associated – increase in the numbers of infants born with microcephaly.
Life hasn’t been sweet for the honeybees lately.
Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters
Jason Mackenzie, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity
You might have heard the term flavivirus recently due to the outbreak of Zika virus. Zika, along with West Nile virus, dengue, yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis, belong to this family of virus.
For a fairly non-descript virus Zika continues to surprise us. Zika has hit the headlines yet again with the news that there’s been transmission in Brazil of two cases by blood transfusion.
The Zika virus is suspected of causing this rare autoimmune disorder.
Jason Corneveaux/Flickr
