Canada Issues Travel Advisory Over Oropouche in the Americas | Your Morning

I'm let's follow up on this story Canada issuing new advice for travelers as a disease that's transmitted through insects is starting to spread across Latin America the oral poo virus is not new but its recent spread is unprecedented there are cases popping up in Brazil Bolivia and Cuba for the very first time so joining us this morning with more is Dr Isaac bogos an infectious disease specialist and regular here on your morning good to see you very great to see you as well emry all right so there's more than 8,000 cases of oroo have been reported so far what do we need to know about this virus what does it look like what does it do yeah so this is a virus it's transmitted by biting insects midges and some types of mosquitoes as you point out it was it's been known for decades it was initially discovered in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1950s and there's been small outbreaks of this in South America in the past few decades what's new this year is that there's a lot more of it and there's more of it in countries that previously haven't reported it those are countries where Canadians like to travel there's also new data that's you know I think it's fair to say that it's it's still very early but there may be an association of a of poor outcomes in pregnancy and I think it's important to recognize that it's early it's not entirely clear but this brings back memories to the 2014 zika virus outbreak so it's just important that people recognize that this virus might cause a fever um you know a headache feeling crummy and most people will recover on the comfort of their own home but there may be keyword may be an issue with pregnant women and that's why it's important if people are uh are traveling to these areas that they just put on bug spray and do everything they can to avoid bug bites to uh avoid infection because there may be complications with pregnancy yeah I'm glad that you brought that up because those countries that we mentioned and as you pointed out are places where people like to travel especially in the winter time which is the season we're coming up to uh there have been cases that are detected in the US and Europe and that was tied to Travelers returning from South America so what are your concerns if cases begin to show up here outside of those Latin American countries so I think it's probably fair to say that we might have even seen cases in Canada that have just gone undetected right because this causes first of all we have a ton of travel between Canada and Latin America and the Caribbean it's a very popular place for Canadians to travel for fun but also to visit uh friends and relatives so we might have even seen cases in Canada that have come back undetected because you know quite frankly most people who get this infection might not even be sick enough to seek medical care you might have a fever a headache you feel crummy for a few days and then you get better um you know some people might come back and we see them and we think oh you know this is Deni it looks very similar to Deni from a clinical standpoint we do a Deni test the Deni test is negative uh the patient gets better they go home they recover in the comfort of their own home and we never get along get around to making a diagnosis of this so we might have already seen it before but the key here is lots of Canadians travel to this part of the world um and and uh pregnant women or women who might be become pregnant should just be aware that there might be an association I think it's fair to say we need more data but out of abundance of caution take extra steps to avoid misquito bites and other insect bites that might transmit this infection you brought up Deni which brings up the point of shot so I can get a shot right now if I'm traveling for Deni what about for or push no there's no vaccine available for this particular infection you know this would be under that umbrella there's a term called neglected tropical diseases and this would be one of those neglected tropical diseases meaning we know it exists but there's not a lot of research or funding looking into this now that there's a possible possible association between poor outcomes and pregnancy I think we're going to see a lot more focus on this to really better understand that uh but there is no vaccine the best thing to do is you can put on bug spray so that's 30% DEET or 20% iic cardan these products are widely available throughout Canada you can wear long pants and a long sleeve shirt to avoid insect bites of course that's not practical when it's 40° 40° Cel and of course if you're staying in a in a hotel or whatever accommodations you make sure it's got good air conditioning or a screen to help avoid those insects from coming in and biting thanks for helping us highlight this this morning my pleasure hey thanks for watching if you liked this be sure to subscribe here or you can check out more your morning videos right here