Epidemiology of Zika Virus Disease and its Social and Economic Drivers

Epidemiology in Public Health
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TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Bradford hill criteria in order to discuss causality in the context of Zika virus disease..............3
Epidemiology data with discussion of social and economic drivers of infectious disease
emergence....................................................................................................................................5
Implication for future practice of Zika virus disease...................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
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INTRODUCTION
Epidemiology is the study of knowing sequence and patterns of public health as it helps out
in determinants of disease within group of people and ways of preventing (Mills, Stefanescu and
He, 2020). This present study is based on Zika virus disease as it will discuss epidemiology on
this disease as when it occurred. In regard to this, it is found that this Zika virus disease that is
uncontrollable was discovered in the year of 1947 and it is named after the Zika forest in
Uganda. In the year of 1952, the first human case of this virus was detected and since then
outbreak of Zika have been reported in Southeast Asia, Pacific Island and tropical Africa. In
addition, it can be said that it is a trigger of Guillain Barre syndrome in adults as well as in
children. This virus causes birth defects in babies that born to infected pregnant women and
babies born with undeveloped head and brain. It is the condition in which the immune system
attacks the nerve (Musso, Ko and Baud, 2019).
Zika virus is single standard RNA virus of the Flaviviridae family, genus Flavivirus. It is
transmitted in humans by the bite of an infected mosquito that is a specie of Aedes. Some
symptoms of this virus include: headache, joint pain, fever, muscle pain and rash. When people
suffer from neurological complications then most of the time it is associated with Zika virus
infections specially in adults and children. Outbreaks of this virus was recorded in Africa,
America, Pacific and Asia. Brazil reported association of Zika virus and microcephaly. On the
basis of current evidence, it is found that ZIKV infection present with no mild clinical features
(Katzelnick and et.al., 2020). It is being estimated by 2018 meta-analysis of 23 studies, Haby and
colleagues that prevalence of asymptomatic ZIKV infection of 62%.
Bradford hill criteria in order to discuss causality in the context of Zika virus disease
Bradford hill viewpoints have been applied in order to identify the relationship between
microcephaly and ZIKV. By comparing secondary data and rates of microcephaly prior to the
Zika virus outbreak. Health agencies have debated on this association between microcephaly and
ZIKV but only few studies have been applied for causation in a systematic way. Increased
incidence of Zika and microcephaly found in pregnancy. Due to time limitation, they stated that
causation was not established. For more knowing, Shepherd’s 6 viewpoints were demonstrated.
Some viewpoints of Bradford hill include:
Strengths of association: In regard to this, it is found that there was around 20-fold
raises in microcephaly cases. In the year of 2013-2014, this virus increased number of cases in
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