Two women have revealed the exhaustion and horrifying rashes they experienced when they were infected with the Zika virus, currently ravaging much of the Americas.
All 31 confirmed diagnoses in the United States are believed to have caught the infection, transferred by the Aedes mosquito, while traveling in the Caribbean or Latin America.
Lizzie Morales, from Houston, was visiting family in El Salvador for Christmas when she started to experience a body ache. Exhaustion that made even simple tasks difficult soon followed.
‘You have no strength or energy to sit down,’ she told ABC 13.
‘You just want to lay down and sleep.’
Morales said a rash came on the fourth day, causing bumps to develop all over her body that were so bad she began going to the beach so that the salt water could soothe her body.
Vomiting was the final symptom and in all the illness lasted about seven days.
Morales was treated with medication in El Salvador, where she said everyone is aware of the virus and her aunts, uncles and cousins have already had it.
Jade Miranda, 21, first noticed the symptoms of Zika when a rash suddenly developed on her face, neck and chest.
Miranda, who lives in Rio de Janeiro, then started feeling feverish, as well as irritation in her eyes.
‘For the whole week, I had mile fever and the joint and muscle pain became stronger,’ she told ABC News.
‘I couldn’t move or close my hands very well and my legs felt weak.’
Miranda said the after the first week of symptoms, the pain had almost disappeared.
Only one out of five people infected with Zika show symptoms of the disease, which can also include pink eye, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Although there is no cure for Zika, it has rarely resulted in hospitalization – and death is even more rare.
But as more and more evidence links the virus to microcephaly, a birth defect that causes babies to develop abnormally small heads, the potential seriousness of the outbreak has come to a head.
No comments:
Post a Comment