Facebook, Apple News, New York Times, and Google News are filled 24×7 with reports of the evildoings of the Trumpenfuhrer. Can I infer from this that Donald Trump, or maybe someone else, has cured humanity of Zika virus infection? I can’t remember that last time that I saw a news article on the subject.
I did a Google News search and came up with examples such as “Pregnant or trying? Don’t let Zika guard down” (AP/Salt Lake Tribune). But if the headline says “you should pay attention to this,” doesn’t that suggest that people have, in fact, let their guard down?
Looks like Obama was Trump’s prophet, since actual cure was done by Trump.
Zika vaccines are in Phase I and Phase II clinical trials. President Trump has proposed significant budget cuts to the departments doing this work. I don’t know if Zika vaccine work would be impacted by these proposed cuts, but they (the cuts) are unlikely to occur anyway.
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/zika-vaccines
But we are waiting for the full story. Why were there no documented birth defects from Zika in Africa, where the virus originated?
What is the rate of birth defects from confirmed infections?
Were there ever any tourists affect, or only immigrants that recently lived in the affected areas?
I don’t remember the details but I think the 1 billion+ zika virus package has made it through congress in one form on another, special interests got paid off. There was no more reason to pump dramatic “babies with small heads” stories to the newspapers. You could hear lobbyists laughing all the way to the bank 🙂
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/us/politics/obama-congress-funding-combat-zika-virus.html
Summer has barely started, so the 2017 case count for Zika hasn’t taken off yet. Zika is primarily transmitted by mosquitoes. If the numbers are still small in September, then maybe Zika is over.
Nevertheless, with climate change happening so swiftly, we can expect to see many tropical diseases making their way North. It’s a brave new world.
Zzazz, we used to have medical testing for new arrivals. I guess you could blame democratic party on global warming and recreational drug use.