Round The World

New Delhi, 11 February 2016

Zika Virus 

AMERICAS FEAR, INDIA’S CONCERN

By Amrita Banerjee

School of International Studies, JNU, New Delhi

With the World Health Organization (WHO) designating the Zika virus as a public health emergency of international concern, world’s leading health experts brainstorm in Geneva to debate ways to treat and combat the spread of this single critical issue. So far statistics reveal that as many as four million clinical cases of Zika could affect the Americas. In this interconnected world where an outbreak of a disease is just a flight away, India needs to gear itself up to tackle any eventuality.

In the past, the Ebola outbreak which took over 11,000 lives in West Africa between 2014 and 2015 was terrible. However, the Zika outbreak is in many ways worse, because its silent infection grapples the highly vulnerable individuals, especially pregnant women whose babies get associated with a microcephaly - a horrible condition of foetal deformation whereby the infants are born with small, deformed heads and suffer from convulsions, seizures and neurological defects.

The virus that originated from the Zika Forests of Uganda was first isolated in 1947. Since the 1950s, it has known to occur within a narrow equatorial belt from Africa to Asia. In 2015 the virus has spread to Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America possibly by the thousands of fans who gathered for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. In view of more such Zika virus carriers, there is a travel alert that has been issued by many governments specially to regions and certain countries where Zika virus transmission is going on.

The symptoms of Zika are similar to those of dengue and chikungunya diseases spread through the same species of mosquitoes, namely the Aedes aegypti. The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting for several days to a week. People usually don’t get sick enough to go to the hospital, and they very rarely die of Zika. However, this has become a medical emergency because there is a possible link between Zika fever and microcephaly in newborn babies by mother-to-child transmission. Situation has become more chronic as there are reports that the illness is not only vector borne but can also be sexually transmitted.

These reports and the Zika menace have given rise to certain intriguing questions. Firstly, the rapid spread of the virus appears to have prompted Latin American governments to urge women not to get pregnant for up to two years, an extraordinary precaution that is aimed at avoiding birth defects. It shows the gravity of the danger because what should have been a routine public health problem is now becoming a culture shaping phenomena.

Secondly, the UN has urged countries hit by Zika virus to let women have access to contraception and abortion.  This has given rise to a great debate because many of the affected countries are Catholic and have restrictive abortion laws.

Thirdly, Brazil, which has been the worst hit, is slated to host the 2016 Olympics in Rio, the first on South American soil. However, with it being Zika prone there are health concerns for athletes and the visitors who intend going there. The army getting deployed for fumigation purposes speaks about the magnitude of the problem in the region. Even though the organizers have dispelled fears stating that since the games would take place August 5-21 in a dryer cooler climate that reduce the presence of mosquitoes, the assurances do not sound good enough.

Now coming to India’s preparedness, despite no incident of Zika virus infection reported in the country so far, health experts have sounded an alarm over its potential spread in Western Ghats and coastal areas in the coming days, unless authorities take appropriate action. Aedes mosquitoes, which spread Dengue virus, are also the carriers of Zika virus and as India has dengue breakouts every year along, the situation gets serious. The problem gets compounded further with many unclean cities and urban enclaves that India has in large numbers.

There are several problems facing health experts to stop this menace. First, there is no tested vaccine as such. Secondly, tracking the disease becomes difficult because in at least 80% of those infected no symptoms show up. In rare cases tests can be done only through sophisticated molecular testing methods. Finally, the illness causing species of mosquitoes thrives well on 21st-century conditions of global warming. In fact, only two nations, Chile and Canada, in the whole of the Americas are free of Aedes aegypti and both essentially cold countries are likely to be the only ones that escape a Zika outbreak.

Amidst this very somber situation there is a ray of hope. In an important ‘Make in India’ mode, scientists at the Bharat Biotech lab in Hyderabad seem to have found their eureka moment as they claim to have developed the world’s first vaccine against Zika. In fact, they claim to have developed two vaccines for the same and got these patented. It is an irony that even though India has no reported Zika cases, an Indian company has been able to beat the western pharma giants at their own game, especially when it is always cornered in the patents issue in the WTO.

It is indeed laudable that this ‘Zika biotech moment for India’ has come at an opportune moment, where the land of snake charmers, elephants and ‘Hindu rate of growth’ has now transformed into an innovation hub with a tech-savvy, science loving Prime Minister. It’s time for Modi to seize this opportunity. With his timely intervention, the vaccine's development and delivery can be fast-tracked, cutting through the red tape of regulatory clearances as it can potentially help countries such as Brazil, which is a fellow member of the BRICS and pave the way for what he called the “vaccine diplomacy.”

Further, on the domestic front, to counter the Zika menace, the Health Ministry has decided to set up a technical committee to monitor the situation. The possible measures that can be taken are – integrated pest management programmes that reduce the mosquito population, mopping up stagnant waste where mosquitoes breed, proper screening of all travelers in airports and other entry points, strengthening the diagnostic and laboratory facilities like nucleic acid amplification methods and carrying out a mosquito census to identify the areas of threat.

History tells us that as public health efforts slacken mosquitoes return in buzzing millions. Therefore, the effort should be a sustained one till the world is free of this pest. Besides, research in various biotechnological methods such as gene editing, introducing GM mosquitoes and a lethal bacterial strain, show promise and should be well funded. It is high time the Government takes effective measures to stop the arrival of this illness into India because in the near future with an unplanned urbanization and global warming, the situation can get out of hand. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)