Giovannetti spoke in the context of seminar UCBM by Title ZiBra, real-time analysis on the Zika virus in Brazil, where he presented, together with the Prof. Massimo Ciccozzi of the ISS ea Silvia Angeletti ofPathology and Clinical Microbiology Research Unit UCBM, the results of two years of field studies.
"With the ZiBra project – Giovannetti said – we searched andwe are trying to take screenshotsing of the potentially infected population of five North-Eastern states of the country, the poorest ones: Rio Grande do Norte, Paraiba, Algoas, Bahia and Pernambuco. Which are, in general, also the states where most of the cases of last year's epidemic were recorded".
December 20, 2016 - It became 'famous' just under 70 years after its discovery in Africa in 1947. Yet the genotype that first recorded significant cases of the Zika virus is not the African one, but the Asian one. In recent months, Zika has unleashed real panic syndromes for those who had to travel to the Brazilian sub-continent, after the explosion of some particularly serious cases, including those that associated it with the microcephaly of the fetuses of some infected pregnant women. “A virus that is not deadly anyway”, as specified today by Martha Giovannetti, researcher in the laboratory of Hematology and Computational Biology ofGoncalo Moniz Institute in El Salvadorin the State of Bahia, Brazil.
"Right now, in the five states we've worked in have been about 10 thousand cases of possible Zika infection notified, but those of people actually affected by the virus are much less”, explains Giovannetti, who adds: “After the epidemic, many funds for research arrived. But, at least in the beginning, there were no suitable structures, qualified personnel, sensitive tools to recognize the virus. They didn't have standardized protocols for a virus that was unknown to them. Also because it presents symptoms similar to those of infections caused by other related viruses, such as Dengue, Chikungunya and Yellow Fever".
The virus was initially thought to have arrived in Brazil with the massive influx of people flown to the country for the 2014 World Cup.”But then, our studies showed that Zika likely got there as early as the 2013 Confederations Cup.”, explains Giovannetti. Until a few months earlier, when the first serious episodes were recorded in French Polynesia, the Zika virus had never been considered by the international scientific community as a public health problem for humans. “But in that year – he explains again – some infected people had serious problems, including the neurological Guillain-Barrè syndrome, which causes severe motor and neurological alterations up to paralysis".
To access the epidemiological data of the five states, the researcher moved to Brazil. “In two years we have evaluated plasma and serum samples of more than 20 percent of cases reported in the Northeast: 1.500-1.600 in all, of which about 300 tested positive for Zika-virus: roughly 12 percent of the population with symptoms. But of these – specifies Giovannetti – less than 2 per cent subsequently faced particularly serious consequences”. Among other things, the literature indicates that 80 percent of infected people recover without even having the signs of the disease (fever, myalgia, rash and joint pain).
Zika is transmitted only through the bite of a female mosquito (or mosquito).“Also for this in Europe - explains Giovannetti -, where the climate is not tropical, the population can feel quite calm: the environment is not conducive to the development of mosquitoes as in Brazil”. Therefore, "the media damage generated for Brazil by the Zika-alarm was far greater than the reality of the risk. I have been living in Brazil for two years and, despite having been stung by thousands of mosquitoes, I have not had any kind of pathology or alteration", he clarifies.
"More confirmations are needed to talk about vaccines"
In addition to the screening, the researchers managed to identify 65 identical clones of the virus genome in as many patients and are completing tests on another 50-60 DNA sequences. “Before, there were just 5 genomes in the databases. Increasing the number of identical 'identity cards' of the virus found in the population and being able to link them to specific symptoms will allow, when we have reached 500-600 cases, to have that 'critical mass' of data that will serve the international scientific community to link certain symptoms to the virus with certainty. Currently, for example, despite the media coverage that has occurred, there is no certain scientific basis that links the infection to the episodes of microcephaly recorded in the fetuses of pregnant women. We are fighting a ghost”, explains Giovannetti. In fact, the virus often registers sporadic cases and therefore escapes identification which would lead to the creation of pharmacological countermeasures.
Now waiting for the new wave of the epidemic, scheduled for next March – when the rainy season returns – for the researcher and the team in which she works it is a race against time: “To be able to talk about vaccines, too many pieces are missing. Further confirmations and the reproduction of the same conditions of infection caused by the virus in humans both in vitro and in vivo are needed. But, because the symptoms are so variable, it has not yet been possible to get to this stage".
The good news, however, is: “We won additional funding for a new project, ZiBra2 – says the researcher -. This will allow us to repeat what has been done so far in the five states throughout the territory of Brazil. Thus, we will be able to have an overall picture of what is happening, on the virus front, throughout the country".
And the future of prevention? “Se – explains Giovanninetti – the second wave of the epidemic will be brought by same viral genotype, then there are good chances to decisively deepen his knowledge, as well as having a milder epidemic than that of 2015 because a good number of people are already immunised. If the virus remains like last year's – hopes the researcher who intervened in UCBM - we will be able to understand its pathogenetic mechanisms to try to design guidelines and prevention strategies which do not exist today. But if the virus mutates so much that it generates new variants, we'll have to start all over again".