There seems to be a virus that
has many scientists are turning their attention to recently—the Mayaro virus.
Mayaro is mosquito-borne virus in the Togaviridae family that was first
identified in 1954 in Trinidad. While it has not caused the same impact and
commotion as say Zika or Ebola have, this relative of the Chikungunya virus is
causing concern due to its similarity to chikungunya and dengue.
While Mayaro has typically
only been found in certain areas around the Amazon, recent diagnoses of an
8-year-old Haitian boy increased the concerns from scientists. The director of
the Emerging Pathogen Institute at U of Florida, Glenn Morris, commented on
how, “We need to recognize that while Zika understandably has all the
attention, it’s not the first virus to move through in epidemic form, nor is it
going to be the last.” Considering how viral diseases such as Ebola and Zika
spiraled throughout different areas in an epidemic manner, scientists believe
that Mayaro has a similar capability to be the new hot topic, which is
something that is obviously undesirable. So far the 8-year-old is the only
known case so the scientists don’t want to jump to conclusions but they believe
that if another case is detected then it can be an alarm for growing concern
within the Caribbean region. With viral epidemics, it is hard to detect the source
before they become, well an epidemic, so these scientists’ concerns are very
much real and may be enough to stop Mayaro from infecting more individuals.
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