The Brazilian army has been drafted in to combat the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus which has caused dreadful brain deformity to more than 4000 children already. 220,000 troops will visit go door-to-door raising awareness across Brazilian cities, on how to eradicate stagnant water mosquito breeding grounds, especially the Aedes aegypti variety which is the main source of Zika transmission. There are growing fears the virus can also be carried by the common culex mosquito.
The outbreak could not come at a worse time for Brazil’s tourism industry with the world-renowned Carnaval events in Río de Janeiro only two weeks away. The city authorities are sending professional fumigators into Río’s densely populated neighbourhoods to tackle waste pile-ups, and other transmission risks such as open sewage.
Man holds child afflicted by Zika virus. (Courtesy: Latin Correspondent)
After a week of continuous news feed about the virus in the international media, the alarm heightened on 27 January when Brazilian Health Minister Marcelo Castro said they are “badly losing the battle”.Minister Castro told the Brazilian O Globo newspaper that the spread of Zika was one of the greatest public health crises in Brazilian history.
This pessimistic prognosis has not pleased Brazilians, worried about the increasing number of people infected, many cases critically, and fearing the Government’s actions are too little too late. Even the World Health Organisation (WHO), which warned last week of the likelihood of the virus spreading to all countries in the Americas except Canada and Chile, has described the minister’s comments as “fatalistic”.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also transmits dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever, has inhabited Brazil and neighbouring South American countries for three decades. Zika is so named after a Ugandan forest in east Africa where the virus was first identified in a monkey in 1947. But it is only since May 2015 that it has become what Castro described as the “public enemy number one” in Brazil.
Unidos da Tijuca samba school at Rio Carnival. (Courtesy: Tumblr)
The most shockingly visible effect of Zika is microcephaly in newborn babies if contracted by pregnant women – a under-development of the brain which causes the baby’s head to be undersized. Since last October there have nearly 4000 known cases of microcephaly in Brazil alone – a vast increase on the previous annual average of 160. The disease is not known to be dangerous in adults, causing serious flu-like symptoms. There is no treatment or vaccine to date.
With Brazil’s economy in sharp decline, all this turmoil is particularly stressful in Río de Janeiro, where thousands of people will gather for the annual samba Carnival starting on 7 February – with a capacity 90,000 people squeezed into the Sambadrome venue alone. And then in the summer, along come the Olympics.
