ZIKA VIRUS - The Puerto Rican Experience.

ZIKA VIRUS - The Puerto Rican Experience. P R Health Sci J. 2018 Dec;37(Special Issue):S3-S4 Authors: Wojna V Abstract Zika has been one of the most devastating new emerging viruses epidemic due to its effects on the nervous system mostly newborns. It was an unexpected epidemic that jeopardized our population and those with the appropriate environment for the virus to replicate, the tropics. It took us by surprise and challenged our health system. When it arrived in Puerto Rico in December 2015 many questions were raised regarding how the clinical manifestations of the infection will affect our population. Although most of infections go on asymptomatic it was not clear how our population heavily infected with other arboviruses such as dengue and chikungunya will alter the clinical and neurological manifestations of Zika. Other questions regarding our health system preparedness to attend to such an epidemic was questioned. We hope that these experiences will aid in the establishment of procedures to deal with similar epidemics in the future and help to gain a better understanding of the acute and chronic effects of the infection in the clinical manifestations and possible management of the infection in a clinical and public health manner. Puerto Rico possess a special position in the Caribbean and can serve to spearhead the establishment of procedures to detect, treat, and study the effects of these new emerging virus epidemics. There...
Source: Puerto Rico Health Sciences Journal - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Tags: P R Health Sci J Source Type: research