The silent spread of Oropouche virus

A recent surge in infections across Latin America has propelled the Oropouche virus, an arbovirus long considered a marginal health threat, into the global spotlight. Like dengue and Zika, Oropouche virus (OROV) causes febrile illness, but new research indicates it may also have serious implications for maternal and fetal health. A new study led by Charité researchers and published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases uncovers just how underdiagnosed and underestimated this pathogen is and why climate change may turn it into the next public health crisis. Under the radar for decades First identified in the 1950s, OROV has quietly circulated in parts of Latin America, with only a handful of officially reported cases annually. This underreporting, however, has now been debunked by the team under Prof. Jan Felix Drexler, head of Virus Epidemiology at Charité. Analyzing more than 9,400 blood samples collected over two decades from six countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica,...