The Zika Virus: Unlocking Its Secrets
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - "Figuring out what's unique about Zika, is at least on my list, top priority," says University of Pittsburgh virologist Carolyn Coyne, PhD.
This virus researcher is trying to unlock Zika's secrets, looking to similar viruses as the key.
"It's in the same virus family as dengue virus, west nile virus, yellow fever virus, all of those viruses are related," says Coyne. "Zika is very closely related to dengue virus, which is a virus that afflicts the majority of the world."
Of course, it's what's different about Zika that is intriguing.
"Although Zika belongs to a family of viruses that infect a lot of people in the world, none of these other viruses induce this kind of pathology," she points out.
That pathology is microcephaly, or abnormally small heads at birth. Strong circumstantial evidence links the virus to this birth defect.
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Three possibilities about what's happening with zika right now: 1) there's something unique about the peeple getting infected, which makes disease more apparent, 2) the virus is changing to become more efficient, or 3) it's a combination of there two things.
In regards to the population, it could be zika hijacking the immune system's response to a previous infection to get to the developing baby.
"In the regions of Brazil that are seeing these microcephaly outbreaks, those are areas where most of the individuals have been infected with dengue virus previously," Coyne says.
In regards to the virus, the Brazilian strains are different from African strains.
"Viruses just want to make more of themselves. And the kind of virus that zika virus is, which is an RNA virus, is a virus that is quite adept at doing that," she adds.
Do these emerging findings point to a prognosis for the United States? Perhaps...since the mosquito that carries these viruses does not have a big presence in the U.S.
"Dengue virus is not a major problem in the United States, so at least to me, there's no reason to think that Zika virus will be a major problem in the United States any more than dengue is," says Coyne.
