"Republicans were using the Zika bill to promote the Confederate flag, anti-contraception riders and exceptions to clean water laws."
"One of the scariest things about Zika is that it can be transmitted both by mosquitoes and by sex — vaginal, oral and anal. In the history of epidemics, it is unprecedented for a virus to be spread through an insect vector and sexually. It means that Zika could continue to infect people after the mosquitoes go away. My generation in particular should be concerned, because the devastating birth defects Zika causes are a threat to our ability to have healthy children."
"We need to think about this in terms of a new sexually transmitted disease, one that is especially hard to combat because 80 percent of infections don’t cause symptoms, and both men and women can carry the virus for months."
"Like HIV, Zika originated in central Africa, very rarely infecting human beings, and circulating among rainforest primates. Unlike HIV, Zika had the ability to fly, carried by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes from one monkey or human, to another."
"Since reaching Brazil in 2013, where it has spread explosively over the last 12 months, Zika has demonstrated capabilities not seen, or extremely rarely noted, with any other insect-carried microbes."
My Comment: It's now in the USA and will inevitably spread both via mosquitos and through sexual contact. It'd be wise to slow the spread. But, since when did we ever consistently live up to our species' name "Homo sapiens" (Latin: wise man).
