By Miller School of Medicine News — Public health officials reported no cases of Zika virus infection in Rio de Janeiro during the 2016 Summer Olympics, according to a University of Miami Miller School of Medicine researcher who participated in the on-site observation and analysis process. “The level of mosquito activity was low during Rio’s winter season, and both athletes …
Zeroing in on Zika
By Robert S. Benchley — Mosquito-borne transmission of the Zika virus appeared in South Florida just recently, but at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, forward-thinking researchers and clinicians had begun preparing for its arrival a year ago. That’s when David Watkins, Ph.D., vice chair for research in the Department of Pathology who researches diseases in Latin America …
Contagion in Popular Places: From Zika to Political Extremism
By College of Arts and Sciences News — The alert is out and South Floridians are taking heed. With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issuing a warning for visitors and locals to avoid a neighborhood in Miami after more than a dozen individuals contracted Zika, a team of University of Miami researchers have presented a new study …
Researchers Employ Multiple Disciplines in Study of Vector-Borne Diseases
By UM News — Credit a 2011 article in the journal Science for inspiring University of Miami researcher Shigui Ruan to create a mathematical model for the impact of mosquito-borne and sexual transmission on the spread and control of Zika. That article, “Sex After a Field Trip Yields to Scientific First,” reported on a Colorado State University vector biologist who, …
Doing the Math on Zika and Sex
By Robert C. Jones Jr. — Before British long jumper Greg Rutherford departed for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro this summer, he left an important part of himself behind: a sample of his frozen sperm. Rutherford, whose wife has expressed the desire to have more children, is preserving his sperm as a precautionary measure against Zika, which has …
Studying Vector-Borne Diseases
By Robert C. Jones Jr. — The last time Diana Naranjo visited her native Ecuador, the heavy rains that are indicative of a strong El Niño had already started to fall, flooding many of the streets and neighborhoods of Guayaquil, city of her birth. But rain has never really annoyed Naranjo. A public health sciences graduate student at the University …
Tracking Mosquito Migration
By Robert C. Jones Jr. — It is a winged migration that has researchers and health officials alarmed. As highland regions in Africa and the Americas experience warmer temperatures, disease-carrying mosquitoes, which thrive under such conditions, have slowly been making their way upslope, putting people at risk for viruses that previously affected only populations in lower-lying regions. “It’s one of …
UM Forum Addresses Concerns about Zika Virus
By Robert C. Jones, Jr. — Here’s the tally, though by the time you read this, the number will have probably changed: 907. That is the number of confirmed cases of microcephaly in Brazil. The birth defect, in which a baby is born with an abnormally small head and often incomplete brain development, has been linked to an explosion of …