WASHINGTON — For one San Juan-based reporter diagnosed with the Zika virus, the resulting illness wasn’t mild and it didn’t last just one week.
Nick Brown, who spent a year as Reuters’ bureau chief in Puerto Rico, said his symptoms returned after several weeks, and he fears he and his wife will be living with the effects of the virus for years to come.
Speaking to WTOP on Tuesday, Brown described his own experience with the virus from diagnosis to illness to planning for the future.
The virus is most commonly transmitted by infected mosquitoes and has spread through parts of Central and South America. The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico has reported more than 17,000 cases so far.
“It doesn’t just permeate your blood stream, it permeates your day-to-day life and some of the more intimate elements of that life,” Brown said of the virus.
Brown’s sore throat began in mid-June and lasted for several days. By the third day, he was in bed and suffered from nights sweats, fever and chills. He felt better after a week and a half had passed.
But he relapsed soon after with a headache and rash, Brown said.
He said others infected with the virus have told him they had similar symptoms. But those experiences seem at odds with what doctors describe, he said.
“It’s just a sign that the knowledge on this front is just evolving constantly,” Brown said.
Public health officials frequently describe Zika symptoms as mild and short-lived. However the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Zika page also details common symptoms of the virus that match Brown’s.
Brown said he was tested for Zika during a visit to his doctor in New York. At the time, only public labs were conducting the tests and his doctor had to request permission for the simple blood test based on Brown’s symptoms and his travel histor
An uncertain future
Brown expects the conversations with his doctors will continue because so little is known about the virus, including its effects on the development of unborn children.
He and his wife are several years away from starting a family. But the risks from the sexually-transmitted virus has forced them to address it as if they were already trying.
The Zika virus can be transmitted between a pregnant woman and her unborn child and has been linked to he severe birth defects microcephaly, when a baby’s brain does not develop properly.
“We’re treating it as something very serious. Because what else can you really do when you’re not entirely sure what the future holds or what the symptoms are going to be or what the impacts are going to be. It’s tough.”
Read Brown’s own account here.
