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Europe’s disease agency has warned vacationers about the risks — especially for pregnant women — of traveling to areas with high cases of a Zika-like virus after the first cases of the disease were detected in Europe.
Nineteen imported cases of Oropouche virus (OROV) — a zoonotic disease which spreads to humans from infected midges and mosquitoes — were reported in European Union countries in June and July: 12 in Spain, five in Italy and two in Germany. All were linked to recent travel to Cuba and Brazil, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said in a statement.
Oropouche virus can cause fever, headache, nausea, vomiting and muscle and joint pains, but it is particularly dangerous for pregnant women. It can lead to miscarriage, developmental problems and deformities for the fetus, the ECDC said, but it added that this is “still under investigation.”
Brazil’s health ministry sounded the alarm in July after four babies were born with microcephaly — smaller than expected heads. Their mothers had been infected with the virus.
Zika virus, which is also transmitted via mosquitoes, is also known to cause congenital deformations including microcephaly. In 2015 and 2016, Brazil recorded more than 3,500 cases of infant microcephaly from an estimated 1.5 million people infected in a major outbreak, reported Science.
There is no vaccine or medication to prevent or treat OROV. While the disease is rarely fatal, Brazil recently reported the world’s first two deaths from the virus, both women in their 20s.
Since January, there have been over 8,000 cases reported in South America, Central America and the Caribbean, with reported outbreaks in Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Cuba.
The ECDC said the risk of infection for European citizens traveling to epidemic areas in the Americas is “assessed as moderate.” But the likelihood of human exposure in Europe remains very low, as the midges and mosquitos carrying the virus are absent on the continent and there are no documented cases of human-to-human transmission to date.
Europe is also reporting an increasing number of mosquito-borne disease such as West Nile virus, with recent cases detected in Greece and Romania.
