Roundup: Italy takes precautions against possible Zika virus contagion

Italy has started taking precautions against possible contagion as the Zika virus is spreading explosively and the World Health Organization (WHO) earlier this week declared the virus an international public health emergency.

Health authorities in Italy have been monitoring the possible presence of the virus and suspended blood donations from people who have travelled in affected countries, of which the most-hit one was Brazil with thousands of new cases of microcephaly registered in the past weeks.

"We have dealt with similar viruses in the past. For the first time, however, we are faced with a virus which is not deadly in general but is very dangerous for babies born to women infected during pregnancy," Giuseppe Ippolito, the scientific director of Lazzaro Spallanzani Hospital in Rome, which specializes in infectious diseases, explained to Xinhua in an interview.

Though hospitalization rates are low and a high rate of patients with Zika even have no symptoms at all, the virus has been linked to microcephaly, when babies are born with abnormally smaller heads, which can cause brain damage and even be deadly.

Outside Latin America, the Zika virus, which is spread by the Aedes mosquito, has been reported in several European countries. Italy has confirmed five cases so far, including four men and one woman, all successfully treated at the Lazzaro Spallanzani Hospital and other health facilities in Italy. Local authorities have said the situation is under control and there is no reason for an alarm.

In fact the virus Zika, which was named after the forest where it was first identified in Uganda in 1947, until recently was a rare tropical disease associated with mild symptoms, Ippolito went on saying. "The first human case was identified in Nigeria in the late 1960s. Since 2013, however, the virus has spread around the world in just a couple of years," he pointed out.

Cases and outbreaks of the disease have been reported from the Western Pacific, the Americas and Africa, triggered by the expansion of environments where the mosquitoes can live and breed, facilitated by urbanization and globalization, Ippolito explained to Xinhua.

"For example, they can settle in shipments and breed in containers filled with water, whether that be natural, such as ornamental bamboo, or human made, such as discarded vehicles," Ippolito elaborated. He like so other health authorities in Italy has advised pregnant women and also people with immune system illnesses or serious chronic pathologies to avoid traveling to the areas at risk.

"What is scaring of this virus is that it is spreading really fast. Fortunately the Zika virus does not generally bring damage to adults, but unfortunately the central nervous system malformation that the virus can cause to the fetuses is irreversible," Giovanni Corsello, president of the Italian society of pediatricians (SIP), highlighted.

Corsello told Xinhua that contagion has also been confirmed to possibly occur through sexual intercourse, but human transmission is an "exception" as people catch Zika virus by being bitten by an infected Aedes mosquito.

He underlined, however, that there is not a concrete risk of an outbreak of the disease in Europe, given that once the acute Zika infection has passed, the body eliminates the virus within one or two weeks.

"The Zika virus can be attacked in laboratory, and efforts to develop a vaccine are getting underway with the collaboration of many countries in the world, including Italy," Corsello added. In his view, potential countermeasures could be developed within one year. Meanwhile, he recommended, all citizens must step up surveillance to contain the threat. Endit