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Most likely, you’ve never heard of the sloth virus. It’s also called the Oropouche Virus, and more than 20 cases were recently found for the first time in the US. All of them had traveled to Cuba. The virus normally circulates in parts of South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. Europe also got its first cases after people traveled to the Americas this summer.
Oropouche virus was first identified in a feverish forest worker in Trinidad and Tobago in an area called Vega de Oropouche in 1955. The name sloth virus came from scientists who proposed that the main animal host of the virus is the pale-throated sloth. They now believe other animals such as wild birds carry the virus and direct human-to-human transmission has not been reported.
Symptoms usually begin3-10 days after being bitten by an insect carrying the virus. There’s fever, headaches, and chills and some suffer nausea and vomiting. Less than half a percent get severe disease including meningitis which is infection and inflammation of membranes around the spinal cord and brain. Death is rare and most people recover in a week. The biggest danger is to pregnant women because the fetus could die or suffer abnormalities.
In 2024, outbreaks were reported in Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia., Peru, and for the first time in Cuba. Climate change will likely cause further spread of Oropouche virus and the insects that carry it.
More Information
Oropouche virus is spreading — and U.S. travelers have been affected
Oropouche virus is showing up in new areas beyond its usual Amazon basin home. The Pan American Health Organization created an epidemiological alert urging for increased prevention, surveillance and diagnosis of the virus.
What to know about Oropouche virus — the deadly fever that has reached the U.S.
As of Aug. 16, 2024, more than 20 cases of Oropouche virus disease — sometimes nicknamed "sloth virus" — have been confirmed in travelers returning to the U.S. from Cuba. These are the first known cases in the U.S. of the viral disease, which normally circulates in parts of South America, Central America and the Caribbean. They join a further 19 cases that have also been detected for the first time in travelers returning to Europe from the Americas this summer.
Oropouche cases in the Americas near 10,000
Since its last update at the start of August, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) in a new report said six countries in the Americas region have reported 1,774 more Oropouche virus cases, mostly from Brazil, Peru, and Cuba.
