Le lien entre Zika et maladie neurologique est prouvé - France Inter
▻http://www.franceinter.fr/depeche-le-lien-entre-zika-et-maladie-neurologique-est-prouve
Il existe bien un lien entre le virus Zika et le syndrome de Guillain-Barré. Une première étude vient d’être publiée par une équipe de l’Institut Pasteur à Paris, publiée dans la revue médicale The Lancet. Elle démontre le lien certain entre maladie neurologique grave et virus zika provoqué, lui, par une piqûre de moustique.
Guillain-Barré Syndrome outbreak associated with Zika virus infection in French Polynesia: a case-control study - The Lancet
▻http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)00562-6/abstract
Summary
Background
Between October, 2013, and April, 2014, French Polynesia experienced the largest Zika virus outbreak ever described at that time. During the same period, an increase in Guillain-Barré syndrome was reported, suggesting a possible association between Zika virus and Guillain-Barré syndrome. We aimed to assess the role of Zika virus and dengue virus infection in developing Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Methods
In this case-control study, cases were patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome diagnosed at the Centre Hospitalier de Polynésie Française (Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia) during the outbreak period. Controls were age-matched, sex-matched, and residence-matched patients who presented at the hospital with a non-febrile illness (control group 1; n=98) and age-matched patients with acute Zika virus disease and no neurological symptoms (control group 2; n=70). Virological investigations included RT-PCR for Zika virus, and both microsphere immunofluorescent and seroneutralisation assays for Zika virus and dengue virus. Anti-glycolipid reactivity was studied in patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome using both ELISA and combinatorial microarrays.
Findings
42 patients were diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome during the study period. 41 (98%) patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome had anti-Zika virus IgM or IgG, and all (100%) had neutralising antibodies against Zika virus compared with 54 (56%) of 98 in control group 1 (p<0·0001). 39 (93%) patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome had Zika virus IgM and 37 (88%) had experienced a transient illness in a median of 6 days (IQR 4–10) before the onset of neurological symptoms, suggesting recent Zika virus infection. Patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome had electrophysiological findings compatible with acute motor axonal neuropathy (AMAN) type, and had rapid evolution of disease (median duration of the installation and plateau phases was 6 [IQR 4–9] and 4 days [3–10], respectively). 12 (29%) patients required respiratory assistance. No patients died. Anti-glycolipid antibody activity was found in 13 (31%) patients, and notably against GA1 in eight (19%) patients, by ELISA and 19 (46%) of 41 by glycoarray at admission. The typical AMAN-associated anti-ganglioside antibodies were rarely present. Past dengue virus history did not differ significantly between patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome and those in the two control groups (95%, 89%, and 83%, respectively).
Interpretation
This is the first study providing evidence for Zika virus infection causing Guillain-Barré syndrome. Because Zika virus is spreading rapidly across the Americas, at risk countries need to prepare for adequate intensive care beds capacity to manage patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome.
Funding
Labex Integrative Biology of Emerging Infectious Diseases, EU 7th framework program PREDEMICS. and Wellcome Trust.
#Virus Advances Through East Caribbean
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/world/americas/virus-advances-through-east-caribbean.html
#Chikungunya fever, a viral disease similar to dengue, was first spotted in December on the French side of St. Martin and has now spread to seven other countries, the authorities said. About 3,700 people are confirmed or suspected of having contracted it.
It was the first time the malady was locally acquired in the Western Hemisphere. Experts say conditions are ripe for the illness to spread to Central and South America, but they say it is unlikely to affect the United States.
“It is an important development when disease moves from one continent to another,” said Dr. C. James Hospedales, the executive director of the Caribbean Public Health Agency in Trinidad. “Is it likely here to stay? Probably. That’s the pattern we have observed elsewhere.”
DRACO : Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Therapeutics - PLoS ONE
►http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0022572
c’est le gros buzz en ce moment en recherche médicale : une nouvelle classe de médicaments #anti-viraux qui semble très prometteuse (et entièrement développée sur fonds publics)
We have developed a new broad-spectrum antiviral approach, dubbed Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) Activated Caspase Oligomerizer (DRACO) that selectively induces apoptosis in cells containing viral dsRNA, rapidly killing infected cells without harming uninfected cells. We have created DRACOs and shown that they are nontoxic in 11 mammalian cell types and effective against 15 different viruses, including #dengue flavivirus, Amapari and Tacaribe arenaviruses, Guama bunyavirus, and H1N1 #influenza. We have also demonstrated that DRACOs can rescue mice challenged with H1N1 influenza. DRACOs have the potential to be effective therapeutics or prophylactics for numerous clinical and priority viruses, due to the broad-spectrum sensitivity of the dsRNA detection domain, the potent activity of the apoptosis induction domain, and the novel direct linkage between the two which viruses have never encountered.
#santé noire ou blanche
►http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2011/07/a-little-housekeeping.html
Tracking all this misery has taught me something about how the world reacts: The darker the victims, the shorter the attention span of the white world. Problems like HIV, dengue, malaria, and cholera afflict untold millions of brown and black people. But let a few hundred Europeans suffer a violent E. coli infection, and the (white) industrial nations fly into a panic. Once they’ve blown a few hundred million euros in wasted cucumbers, they regain their composure.