Indian scientists were aware of Zika virus way back in 1950s and had even stored a vial of the pathogen, which has now emerged as a global health threat, a senior government official recently revealed.
Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Director-General Soumya Swaminathan stated that they have the report and eve the stored virus from that time in the virology institute in Pune, except the virus was dead and couldn’t be revived. She went on to add that even though scientists don’t know how they stored it in 1951 or 52, at least they thought about storing a vial.
Zika disease is caused by a virus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes. People with Zika virus usually have symptoms like mild fever, skin rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headache. These symptoms normally last for 2-7 days. There is no specific treatment or vaccine currently available for the infection, whose latest large outbreak was reported from Brazil.
According to WHO, Zika was first identified in Uganda in 1947 in rhesus monkeys. It was subsequently identified in humans in 1952 in Uganda and Tanzania. Outbreaks of Zika virus disease have been recorded in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific
.To deal with Zika, Swaminathan said, surveillance and testing of people is being done in the country at present, besides looking at the issue of developing a vaccine. She confirmed that India was also equipping their labs to test for Zika circulation. “We are testing people who present with fever, just like a dengue but a dengue negative. We have not found any case so far, but we will continue this exercise,” she said.
The ICMR hopes to get a live virus so that government labs can start working on it, Swaminathan said.
