Oropouche virus more prevalent than previously assumed, data shows
The Oropouche virus is much more widespread in Latin America than previously thought, according to a study from Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Peru.
Oropouche virus disease, also known as Oropouche fever, is a febrile illness, from which patients typically recover quickly.
It's caused by the Oropouche virus, which people catch through the bites of infected biting midges, and possibly of some mosquitoes, the World Health Organization says.
International researchers found antibodies against the pathogen in 6.3% of more than 9,400 blood samples, meaning at least one in 16 people there has had this infection at least once in their lives, says co-author Jan Felix Drexler.
More than 6.3% of the population has probably already had contact with the virus, says Drexler, head of the Virus Epidemiology working group at Germany's Charité hospital. "We don't know how long the antibodies last," he says.
But there were significant regional differences, the team wrote in a paper published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.
While in Costa Rica, an average of around 2% of the samples showed antibodies against the pathogen, in Ecuador it was 5% and in the Amazon regions, more than 10%.
The blood samples were taken between 2001 and 2022.
Symptoms of the Oropouche virus (OROV) are similar to those of dengue or chikungunya fever and include headaches, muscle and joint pain, nausea and diarrhoea, sometimes also skin rashes.
In rare cases, the disease can be severe. There are also indications of possible damage to unborn children. There is currently no specific treatment or vaccination for the virus.
The virus is transmitted in Latin America by different mosquito species.
For a long time, only a few cases were reported per year as little testing was carried out.
But the number of infections has risen to more than 20,000 cases per year since 2023, though it is unclear why this is the case.
Drexler's team say climate factors such as rainfall and temperature have a major influence. Last year's heavy rainfall in parts of South America could have contributed to larger mosquito populations and thus to the spread of the virus.
In Germany, the Foreign Office and Robert Koch Institute (RKI) centre for disease control say pregnant women should weigh whether it is necessary for them to travel to areas where there are outbreaks.
If you are travelling to areas affected, take consistent protection against bug bites by wearing long clothing, using insect repellent and getting a particularly fine-mesh mosquito net.
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