In adults, Zika infections have also been linked to a rare neurological syndrome known as Guillain-Barre, as well as other neurological disorders. About a month after the initial infection, the researchers still found Zika’s genetic materials in the tears of the infected mice.
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Dr. Van Philip Baton, Medical Officer of Department of Health (DOH-7) said during the Association of Government Information Officers (AGIO) – Philippine Information Agency (PIA) 7, said that as of now, there is no record of suspected cases with zika virus here in the region.
All of this is a big red flag for the spread of Zika: if the eye can be a reservoir for the virus, then there’s a chance Zika can be spread by coming in contact with an infected person’s tears. Zika is believed to cause brain defects in infants, the symptom for which it’s most widely known.
Almost a third of all babies infected in utero with Zika also showed eye disease such as inflammation of the optic nerve, retinal damage or blindness after birth. They include a fever, headache and possible red eyes. The researchers are planning similar research in people who have been infected with Zika.
There have been no reports of confirmed cases of Zika virus among people who attended the Games, both during and since their return. The study pointed out that eye banks may need to start testing corneas for Zika virus as well.
Zika is spread in bodily fluids.
The good news is that top scientists think even if human tears do not turn out to be infectious, their detection of live virus in the eye and viral RNA in tears will have practical benefits.
As an immune-privileged site, the eye doesn’t get a lot of activity from the immune system to prevent accidental damage to sensitive tissues for vision while fighting off an infection. Consequently, infections sometimes persist in the eye after they have been cleared from the rest of the body, the study said.
While the Zika-carrying mosquito exists in far-north Queensland, Dr Senanayake said the chance of it spreading locally is “very low” because health authorities are monitoring it.
Zika is primarily a mosquito-borne virus that shows no signs of symptoms in four out of five infected cases. By those calculations, Zika is moving unusually fast.
“In ten years or so we’ll look at what’s happening now in the world with Zika, in this massive outbreak, as when we learned everything about Zika”, he said. It is the main culprit of the zika epidemic as well as that of other viruses like dengue or chikungunya. They didn’t find virus in the eyes of baby mice eight days after they were born to infected mothers.
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The fight to stop the spread of Zika is going to take a bigger toll on people’s sex lives than experts originally thought.
