A virus found in sloths and spread by mosquitoes in South America has now been found in the US.
The CDC has issued a warning about the Oropouche virus after 11 Florida residents returned home from a summer vacation with the illness.
The disease is spread by mosquitoes in tropical parts of the Caribbean and South America and causes fever, rash and joint pain.
In rare cases it can lead to swelling of the brain and death. Earlier this year it claimed the lives of two healthy Brazilian women.
In 2024, more than 8,000 cases have been reported in Central and South America, with two deaths, one miscarriage and four newborns born with birth defects. Earlier this month, 19 cases were reported in Europe, prompting an alert from the European Centre for Disease Control.
The Oropouche virus is also called sloth fever, not because it is transmitted by sloths, but because the animals can be carriers of the disease
The Oropouche virus is primarily spread by bites from an insect called a midge. Sometimes mosquitoes also carry it
The US CDC’s warning was specifically addressed to doctors and public health authorities, asking them to test people returning from vacations in Latin America this summer for the virus.
The Oropouche virus is spread by mosquitoes and an insect called a midge, which is a small, blood-sucking, winged insect.
Despite its nickname, sloth fever is not caused by contact with sloths. Instead, it was given the nickname because scientists believe sloths can carry and be infected with the disease. Experts suspect that other animals, such as birds, can also carry 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 not get bitten at all when traveling to these regions.
The CDC recommends wearing long sleeves and pants, using insect repellent, and staying in areas with screens on windows and doors.
Common symptoms include fever, severe headache, chills, muscle aches and joint pain, According to the CDC.
Fewer than one in twenty people who get the disease develop more serious, life-threatening symptoms. These include severe bleeding, meningitis, a swelling of the membranes that protect the brain, and encephalitis, a swelling of the brain itself.
It can also cause birth defects and miscarriages.
The four babies named 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.
That’s why the CDC’s letter urged pregnant women to reconsider their travel plans to the area.
Apart from transmission during pregnancy, the virus cannot be transmitted between people.
Cases have been reported in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, and Cuba. All cases reported in Europe and North America have occurred in people who recently traveled to one of those countries.
According to medical entomologists Cameron Webb from the University of Sydney and Andrew van den Hurk Medical from the University of Queensland, this has been a local problem for years, but this is the first time it has attracted international attention.
‘The situation is reminiscent of the Zika outbreak in 2015-2016’ Professor Webb and Professor van den Hurk said.
Dr Danny Altmann, Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, told The Telegraph: ‘we should all be concerned’.
He added: ‘Oropouche is certainly a concern because of the uncertainty it brings. And for anyone concerned about global health, it feels like climate change is adding to the burden on health care in a very tangible way every season.’
