What is 'sloth fever?' And a look at other mosquito-borne illnesses | Health Watch

Published: Aug 27, 2024 Duration: 00:04:11 Category: News & Politics

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All right. Now on to our health watch. As always, we're joined by Doctor Syed Hussein from Trinity Health of New England. Good to see you, sir. Likewise, Tim, glad to have you here. How about this? Another mosquito borne illness to talk about and to try to put into proper context. I had not heard of it before this morning. It's called sloth fever and I guess there is at least one confirmed case in the United States. First of all, what is it? Yeah. So this is uh um uh a disease um Tim that is actually um transmitted by mosquitoes or biting flies called midges. It's mostly predominantly seen in South uh America um endemic, which means it's prevalent uh to a large degree in the Amazon area. So forested areas basically. Um and all the cases we've seen actually the outbreak uh for sloth fever started lately last year in South America, Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia Peru Cuba. There were tw there have been 21 cases documented in the US so far and a similar number in Europe and out of those 2120 are in Florida, one in New York. All of those are travelers, people who recently traveled from Cuba, who brought the disease into the country, can people transmit it from? One great question. We have not seen any evidence that there's people to people transit. You would need to be bitten by a certain type of mosquito or one of these biting flies. And it looks like because these people had traveled, there's at least reason to believe there's not necessarily mosquitoes carrying sloth fever in the US. That's right. I don't know for sure. That's right. Ok. Well, that's good. And, you know, I, I won't even give it any more credence than that 20 cases in a nation of 343 150 million people. Very, very small. Especially, it looks like there's no immediate reason to believe it will spread. Right. No panic here. But if you, uh, if you're looking at traveling, especially if you're pregnant to one of these countries, you may wanna reconsider it because remember several years ago, we went through the same thing with Zika. Um, and we found out that it may have an impact on newborn or develop. Yes, exactly in pregnant women. So you may want, that's the CDC uh guidance right now related to sloth fever. Ok. Let's also talk about while we're at other mosquito borne diseases like eastern neck encephalitis or Tripoli and West Nile virus. No human cases. I'm sorry. One human case of West Nile here in Connecticut again, we're talking about very small numbers. So can you put into context just how much of a risk this is? Yeah. So just for numbers, so that people understand in an area where we may see West Nile such as New England, one in 500 mosquitoes may be infected or may be carrying this virus. And if they do bite you, one in 300 people may develop symptoms. So in other words, 80% of people um will not develop any symptoms. 20% may have mild symptoms, Tim, it's the 1% that may have severe manifestations of West Nile virus disease, which could be, you know, um impacting your brain, your spinal cord, neurological symptoms, high fever, headaches, neck stiffness, things to look out for can result in coma and death. They can. Um and people that really need to be careful are pregnant women. Um, as well as those that may have an immunocompromised status are those rough percentages the same for eastern equine encephalitis. We are seeing people who have gotten sick. Uh They got a good chance of dying if you get sick. Here's what I'll tell people because there are a lot of it's the season right now. Yes, it's mosquito season, right? Use protection. Use common sense to ensure that your skin is covered when you're in areas outdoors, dawn dusk when we know that mosquitoes out there. And um epa Environmental Protection Agency approved repellent is what is recommended. Um, along with clothing that can cover your skin as much as possible. Should people be avoiding activities? I wouldn't, I wouldn't go there as long as you take precautions. I think you can safely continue doing, you know, outdoor activities, et cetera for the summer context is important. Right? We never want to say you can't worry at all, but we don't want to worry too much because we do focus on the small. Just have to be smart. There you go. Doctor Husain. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us like he always does on the health watch.

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