the detection of 21 cases of the insect born oropo virus disease also known as sloth fever in US Travelers returning from Cuba has prompted Health officials to issue a warning recent reports of outbreaks in areas without previous endemic transmission fatal cases and vertical transmission associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes have raised concerns about human health risks per a CDC report issued Tuesday on the virus that's infected thousands in South America and the Caribbean no vaccines to prevent or medicines to treat oroo virus disease exist treatment is supportive the oropo virus was first detected in Trinidad and Tobago in 1955 and is endemic in the Amazon basin and scientists in Brazil found it in a sloth 5 years later however it is not spread by sloths it's an emerging arthropod born virus in the Americas that's transmitted by tiny biting insects called midges sometimes referred to as no and some mosquitoes that also spread West Nile virus