Live Zika Virus Found In Saliva – Kissing Transmission?

This is disturbing:

Scientists identified the Zika virus in the saliva and urine of two infected patients, a top Brazilian biomedical research institution said on Friday, prompting its president to urge pregnant women not to kiss strangers just as local carnival celebrations begin…

These developments come just as Rio kicks off its annual carnival celebrations, a raucous five-day bacchanalia known for street parties and lots of alcohol and kissing. Some revelers even keep track of the number of complete strangers they kiss.

If it is in saliva, it is in stool. What we don’t know is how long it can survive outside the host, and if it can infect humans through hand to mouth. So far the known transmission risk has been expanding from mosquito-borne, to blood-transfusion-borne, to sexually transmitted, to possibly kissing-transmitted. Nothing says it will stop there. You could end up with a weak hand to mouth, like a less transmissible norovirus, favoring hosts with reduced disgust and limited tendencies toward cleanliness.

It is also worth noting that some viruses are classified as lysogenic. A lytic virus like the flu invades cells, reproduces, and eventually bursts the cell, freeing reproduced viral particles as it kills the infected cell. A lysogenic virus, like a Herpes virus, invades cells, cut’s the host cell DNA with a little restriction enzyme, and then splices its viral DNA into the cut in the host cell’s genome, where it then hides from the immune system until the immune response cools down.

Some host cells then enter a lytic phase and reproduce virus, killing their host cells, but not all. Some cells just hang around, reproducing normally (and unwittingly producing more cells carrying the virus’s hidden DNA). Periodically, biochemical signals like stress then trigger cells in the hibernating lysogenic phase of the infection, leading them to pop their viral DNA out into the cell, beginning the reproduction process, and the virus then erupts into a lytic phase.

That yields an infection that periodically re-emerges for the life of the host, like a herpes infection, infecting cells and shedding viral particles to infect others. It would be possible for females infected with such a lysogenic virus to carry it, as well as the risk of having deformed babies, for the rest of their lives.

What I have not heard is if Zika has a lysogenic capability. If Zika is exclusively lytic, it will burn out and cease to be a problem, probably very soon, as everyone develops immunity. If it is lysogenic on the other hand, then it could be a very long-lasting and costly problem without an easy solution, which will also likely prove resistant to vaccination, as have other lysogenic viruses like the Herpes simplex viruses and Epstein Barr.

The panic I see makes me wonder if researches know something we don’t.

You can see how with Carnival, and the upcoming global sex-fest called the Olympics scheduled for Brazil, this virus could preferentially remove a number of sex-driven, disgust-suppressed leftist genetic predispositions from our populations world-wide, even though it isn’t lethal to the host, or even uniformly sterilizing.

If a lethal pathogen emerges (and I would bet one will during the collapse), you can see how quickly leftism could disappear from the face of the earth, without anyone lifting a finger. Many leftists would be converted to conservative psychologies just by the threat of mortality and still others, resistant to such adaptation, would be killed outright.

As I’ve said, the Renaissance was not a chance event. Y. pestis cleaned out the r-strategists.

It will happen again. The only thing we don’t know is when.

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thebillyc
8 years ago

AC: you must be aware of the counter-narratives (eg rappaports blog) debunking the zika virus hysteria. Z has been around a long time, and this is just the latest wave in the ocean of mind-controlling fear drowning the masses. The rabbit slaves run for protection, yada yada.

Anon
Anon
8 years ago

It could be an effort to provide those still loyal to the US with an excuse to close the border. No?

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8 years ago

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ACThinker
ACThinker
8 years ago

AC I can see Zika becoming a massive sorter between r and K….

Consider the effects, microencepholy. Often near term fatal, certainly preventing passing on the genetics. Now for a 1st worlder that is r, this is either a benefit for A Abortion or B the child dies shortly afterward, and frees up the mother to go find more dopamine hits. for a K 1st worlder this means getting children to adulthood is harder, and children who become adults are another ‘scarce resource’

FWIW, Y. pestis was made possible by the Little Ice Age (LIA). That started about 1310 first black death was in 1349. I realize you are a microbio guy. I’ve got an interest in everything, so I often look broader. A major difference between the shortages starting in 1310 and 1350 is that the first cleared out mostly the poor. Y. pestis would get the rich and poor. Fields would go fallow. This is important to a tech base where about 90% of labor was devoted to growing food.