A virus found in sloths and spread by mosquitoes in South America has now been discovered in the United States.
The CDC issued a warning about the Oropouche virus after 11 Floridians returned home from a summer trip with the illness.
The disease is transmitted by mosquitoes in tropical areas of the Caribbean and South America and causes fever, rash and joint pain.
In rare cases, it can cause brain swelling and death, and claimed the lives of two healthy Brazilian women earlier this year.
In 2024, more than 8,000 cases have been reported in Central and South America, resulting in two deaths, one miscarriage and four newborns with birth defects. Earlier this month, nineteen cases were reported in Europe, prompting a warning from the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Oropouche virus is nicknamed sloth fever not because it is spread by sloths, but because animals can carry the disease.
The Oropouche virus is transmitted primarily through the bites of an insect called a mosquito. Sometimes mosquitoes also transmit it.
US CDC warning It was specifically addressed to doctors and public health authorities, asking them to test for the virus people who returned from vacations in Latin America this summer.
The Oropouche virus is transmitted by mosquitoes and a mosquito, a small, winged, blood-sucking insect.
Despite its nickname, sloth fever is not caused by contact with sloths. It got its nickname because scientists believe sloths can carry and contract the disease. Experts suspect other animals, such as birds, can also transmit the virus.
If you are bitten by an insect carrying Oropouche, there are no medications to treat it and no vaccines to prevent it. The only defense against the disease is to completely avoid bites when traveling to these regions.
The CDC recommends wearing long sleeves and pants, using insect repellent, and staying in places that use screens on windows and doors.
Common symptoms include fever, severe headache, chills, muscle pain, and joint pain. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Less than one in 20 people who contract the disease will develop more severe, life-threatening symptoms such as severe bleeding, meningitis (inflammation of the membranes that protect the brain) and encephalitis (inflammation of the brain).
It can also cause birth defects and miscarriages.
All four babies reported in the CDC letter were born with microcephaly, a condition in which a newborn’s brain and skull are much smaller than they should be.
As such, the CDC letter urged pregnant women to reconsider potential travel plans to the area.
Apart from transmission during pregnancy, the virus cannot spread between humans.
Cases have been reported in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and Cuba. All reported cases in Europe and North America have occurred in people who had recently travelled to one of those countries.
Medical entomologists Cameron Webb from the University of Sydney and Andrew van den Hurk from the University of Queensland said this has been a local concern for years but this is the first time it has attracted international attention.
“The situation is reminiscent of the Zika outbreak of 2015-2016,” Professor Webb and Professor van den Hurk said.
Dr Danny Altmann, Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, He told the Telegraph“We should all be worried.”
He added: “Oropouche is certainly a concern for its uncertainty and, for all those concerned about global health, it seems that climate change is increasing the burden of healthcare in a very palpable way, season after season.”
