First Zika Death in the US has me wondering --

www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/health/zika-virus-first-death-in-us-puerto-rico.html?_r=0

The condition that killed him, immune thrombocytopenic purpura, is similar to Guillain-Barré in that the Zika infection triggered his immune system to produce antibodies that attacked his own cells. In Guillain-Barré, they attack nerve cells, while in this case, they attacked the platelets, which cause the blood to clot.

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Hi everyone, I haven't been here in a very long time, since my son's ITP, while still present (13 years next month -- happy anniversary...), doesn't influence our lives nearly as much as it did when he was small. Given this news, however, I thought this the best place to start with this question.

Does anyone have any information or any links to studies or articles that discuss dengue (and now Zika) in people who already have ITP? All the articles I have seen talk about how dengue causes ITP (hence hemorrhagic fever), and this article describes how this 70 year old man, once recovered from Zika, developed ITP and died.

I'm curious -- and, frankly, fearful -- about how Zika might exacerbate existing ITP. Anyone?

Thanks.

Only case I could find:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3212971/
Clinical Profile of Dengue Infection in Patients with Hematological Diseases
Case 2:

A 10-year-old child, a case of immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) on low dose steroids was maintaining his platelet counts at around 50 x109/l, when he developed fever and petechial rash of 5 days duration with fall in platelets to 20x109/l. With the previous case in mind and before considering change in treatment for ITP, dengue NS-1 antigen and later mu-capture ELISA for dengue IgM were performed and found to be positive. He was treated conservatively with intravenous fluids and antipyretics. Platelet counts started increasing on 7th day of illness. The steroids were not stopped during this episode of fever. In patients of ITP presenting with fever and falling platelet counts for any reason, we even consider increasing the dose of steroids along with therapy for fever in case of bleeding or platelet counts below 20x109/l. In this patient we continued with the same dose as platelets did not fall below 20x109/l and the child did not have any evidence of serious bleed except for petechiae.

I think all the hype about Zika is greater than the actual risk. A few years ago, it was Ebola and those people also die from bleeding out. Ebola was contained and it ended. Zika has actually been around for many, many years (since 1947) and no one ever heard of it until recently.

The man who died from Zika was allegedly 70 years old, and his risk of death was much higher than that of a young, otherwise healthy child. Apparently, Zika can take counts down low for those that are affected by it, so whether you start with low counts or end up with low counts, the result is the same...low counts. If it truly does cause the antibodies that affect platelets, then traditional treatments should work. As you know, having low counts does not mean that a person will die and again, the elderly tend to bleed more than the young. We have no idea how this poor man was treated or if he was even treated in a timely manner.

Please try not to worry. I don't think the US is flooded with a bunch of killer mosquitoes.

Thanks to both of you.