Oropouche virus

Current Context : Two women in Brazil became world’s first humans to die due to outbreak of Oropouche virus.

ABOUT

• Oropouche virus disease is an arboviral disease caused by the Oropouche virus (OROV), a segmented single-stranded RNA virus that is part of the genus Orthobunyavirus of the Peribunyaviridae family.
• Transmission : by bites of midges, a kind of small flies, though it can also be spread via mosquitoes.
• It cannot be spread from person to person.
• Symptoms are similar to dengue, includes fever, chills, muscle pain, headache, joint pain.
• There is no cure for Oropouche so far with no specific antiviral drugs or vaccines available for the disease.
• It was first detected in Trinidad and Tobago in 1955, with the initial epidemic occurring in Belem, Brazil, in 1961