Zika far worse than Rubella – May 2016

Clips from the internet May 2016

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/rmv.1886/abstract
Maternal Zika infection: like rubella but worse
April 27 2016 PDF costs $6
Rubella
70% of population already were immune (before vaccine)
Rubella only intermittently epidemic
Now have Rubella vaccine
Zika
Hard to distinguish from Dengue virus
Test only indicates if there had been a recent infection (had to detect after a month)
Rarely test women who do not have symptoms – but may have infected their fetus
No Zika vaccine expected for years

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/01/30/464899067/before-zika-virus-rubella-was-a-pregnant-womans-nightmare
In the 1964-1965 rubella pandemic, an estimated 50,000 pregnant women in the United States were exposed to rubella in pregnancy, resulting in miscarriages, stillbirths, and 20,000 babies born with congenital rubella syndrome, which caused blindness, deafness, brain and heart damage. At the height of the pandemic, an estimated 1 of every 100 babies born in Philadelphia was afflicted.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/zika-rubella/477165/
If such an outbreak occurs, it will be the first of its kind—an epidemic-prone virus believed to cause serious birth defects—since the rubella outbreak of 1964.

“The similarities are great between rubella and Zika. Both are fever-rash illnesses, and both have arthropathy, or arthritis, as manifestations,” said Susan Reef, who leads the rubella team in the CDC’s Global Immunization Division. “Also like rubella, there’s an asymptomatic component to Zika, so not everyone knows when they’re infected with rubella or with Zika.”

… in 1959 only 17.5 percent of women of childbearing age lacked rubella antibodies.”

“For rubella, the infants are infectious; they have congenital rubella syndrome for up to a year. But we have no idea about infants born with Zika.”

http://www.bioworld.com/content/rubella-flaviviruses-inform-fight-against-zika-virus
Elimination is not likely to be in the cards for Zika, which, unlike rubella, has an animal reservoir that is unlikely to be eliminated in the mosquito.

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/zika-now-and-rubella-in-1964-5-things-to-know.html

1969, the global incidence of CRS ranged from 0.8–4.0 per 1 000 live births …
 Download the PDF from Vitamin D Life

CDC Rubella Pink Book
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• "As many as 85% of infants infected in the first trimester of pregnancy will be found to be affected if followed after birth"

Hints that Rubella is associated with low vitamin D

• A profile of mothers giving birth to infants with congenital rubella syndrome. An assessment of risk factors 1990
  "The risk for delivering an infant with congenital rubella syndrome was approximately 2.5 times higher for blacks compared with whites"
• Rubella outbreaks peak in the Spring (when vitamin D levels are the lowest) CDC
• Rubella vaccine-induced cellular immunity: evidence of associations with polymorphisms in the Toll-like, vitamin A and D receptors, and innate immune response genes 2010

Virus category in Vitamin D Life