Recently, the Centers for Disease Control warned about sloth fever, a disease that is occasionally fatal, and is caused by the Oropouche virus. “The majority of people who become infected will … recover within a few days to a month. However, a smaller percentage can develop very serious secondary ailments and even die. Just to put some icing on this already nauseating cake, there is currently no vaccine that prevents contraction of the Oropouche virus and no medication capable of treating it. The largest number of cases reported thus far in the U.S. have shown up in Florida, but more on that in a moment,” notes Jazz Shaw.
The Oropouche virus, a potentially fatal disease also referred to as “sloth fever,” has made its way to the United States, prompting questions about what Americans should know.
On Tuesday, Florida’s health department reported 30 cases of Oropouche fever in the state, all linked to travel from Cuba. There has also been one case reported in New York following travel.
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health advisory to notify clinicians and public health authorities of an increase in the virus.
Shaw adds,
Some of you might be thinking that you’ve dodged a bullet here because you don’t work around sloths and they’re not native to where you live. Sadly, that’s not the case because sloth fever is somewhat similar to the black plague in terms of transmission. People used to believe the plague was carried by rats, but it was actually carried by infected fleas that traveled on the rats. The Oropouche virus similarly is carried by midges and mosquitos in forested areas where they transmit it primarily to non-human vertebrate hosts such as birds, rodents, and (of course) sloths. People who travel to such areas and are bitten by the mosquitos can then carry it back home with them.
That brings us to the question of why most of the reported cases thus far have been seen in Florida. Very little of the United States is a suitable habitat for the insects that carry the virus or the normal animals they prey upon. But Cuba is prime sloth fever territory. When people travel from Cuba to the United States (typically Florida), they may bring the infection with them. The same can be said for Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. Now stop and ask yourself something. In addition to all of the illegal migrants attempting to reach Florida from Cuba, what are some of the countries that other migrants pass through on their way to the southern border? The virus has also been identified in Venezuela. I’m fairly sure the picture is coming clear for most of you.
Dengue fever — a tropical disease so painful it is also known as “breakbone fever” — has also spread into parts of Florida, Texas, and Arizona. In 2023, there were 11 cases of locally-acquired dengue fever in Florida. It could become much more widespread in the U.S. in the future.
On the bright side, scientists have come up with a vaccine that prevents dengue fever 80% of the time, at least in the short run:
Results of a phase 3 trial in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) show 80% protection for the single-dose tetravalent (four-strain) Butantan-Dengue Vaccine (Butantan D-V) among participants with no evidence of previous dengue exposure and 89% protection in those with a history of exposure.
The vaccine is the culmination of years of research from Brazil’s Butantan Institute, and the study included results from 16 Brazilian centers located in all five regions of the country. Each year at least 1 million Brazilians get infected with dengue…and the fatality rate is 0.9%.
“In June, we’ll complete the five-year follow-up period. Once the data has been consolidated, we’ll know how long the protection induced by the vaccine will last,” said first study author Esper Kallas, PhD in a press release. “If all goes well, we’ll win definitive approval for the vaccine in 2025.” “Butantan Institute’s vaccine has also proved extremely safe for people who have never had dengue, which is an advantage over the vaccines now available on the market,” said researcher Mauricio Lacerda Nogueira, PhD.
Currently, there are two other other dengue vaccines approved for use and recommended by the World Health Organization: Dengvaxia (3 doses) and TAK-003 (2 doses). Dengvaxia, however, is recommended only for use in children and adults ages 9 to 45 with at least one documented case of dengue, as dengue-naive recipients can suffer antibody dependent enhancement if they receive a vaccine prior to a natural infection.
Special mosquitoes are being bred to fight dengue fever in Honduras, in hopes of replacing mosquitoes that spread dengue fever, with a strain of mosquitoes that doesn’t spread the disease. Brazil has released millions of such mosquitoes to fight dengue fever.
Having more effective mosquito repellents would be helpful to protect against many diseases like dengue.
“Scientists in Israel have developed a new kind of ‘chemical camouflage’ that could more effectively keep pesky mosquito bites at bay,” reports Euro News. But it will take years before it is available in the U.S., thanks to America’s incredibly slow Food and Drug Administration.
The new mosquito repellent is urgent, given the spread of malaria-carrying mosquitos, whose bites cause hundreds of thousands of deaths annually around the world.
To fight them, scientists at the Hebrew University in Israel have developed a new kind of insect repellent – a “chemical camouflage” – that they say will deter 99% of mosquitoes from landing on areas of skin to which the repellent is applied.
“First, it’s a mechanical protection against mosquitoes biting through your skin. Second, this cellulose polymer acts as a chemical camouflage,” says Dr. Jonathan Bohbot of Hebrew University.”It prevents your smell that attracts mosquitoes and brings more mosquitoes in, and then, it also releases our repellent very slowly. So, it extends its duration of protection,” he says.
Typical repellents work by dissuading mosquitoes that have already come close to someone from biting them.
The new chemical camouflage repellent acts by preventing a mosquito from approaching a person to begin with.
But it may not reach the U.S. market. The Food and Drug Administration keeps the most effective sunscreens off the U.S. market. It may do the same with this mosquito repellent, just as the Obama administration impeded anti-mosquito remedies during an outbreak of the disease Zika, which results in birth defects. As Washington University in St. Louis notes, “Due to Zika virus, more than 1,600 babies were born in Brazil with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, from September 2015 through April 2016.” The Obama administration banned a life-saving pesticide, preventing it from being used to kill mosquitos carrying this awful disease, even though, as the New York Post noted at the time, Zika “infected nearly 300 pregnant women in the United States, putting their babies at risk for a devastating birth defect. . . . hundreds of babies are at risk of a horrifying brain defect called microcephaly. Infants who don’t perish outright need extensive care, which can cost up to $10 million.”
The FDA blocks new innovations that will protect your skin. Insider reports that the “US has awful sunscreen compared to Asia and Europe. Strict, decades-old FDA rules are to blame.” “European and Asian sunscreens boast stronger and smoother formulas than sunscreens found in the US. That’s because the FDA is slower to approve new UV filters compared to other countries.”
