Q: If the Zika virus has been studied since the late 1940s, why have people only recently become concerned about it?
—Harris Gottlieb, Dunwoody
A: The Zika virus has gained more attention because of large outbreaks in French Polynesia in 2013 and Brazil in 2015.
Scientists and doctors previously had studied the disease, but there had been only 14 known cases of the Zika virus in humans before 2007, the World Health Organization states on its website.
“This is a very unusual virus that we can’t pretend to know everything about it that we need to know,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently told USA Today.
The Zika virus was discovered in Uganda in 1947 and there were human cases by 1952, but there wasn’t a larger outbreak until 2007 on islands in Micronesia.
No Zika cases have originated in the United States, but there are “travel-associated” cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states.
Q: We used to have Dumpsters all over the place. Is there a reason why Marietta discontinued that? No one has been able to give me a straight answer on this.
—Dayle Masters, Marietta
A: The company supplying recycling Dumpsters as part of the Keep Marietta Beautiful campaign went out of business, a city spokeswoman told Q&A on the News in an email.
“No other company was willing to pick up and pay for the material collected in the Dumpsters,” she wrote.
Andy Johnston with Fast Copy News Service wrote this column. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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