Public healthBrazil “badly losing” battle against Zika virus: Health minister

Published 26 January 2016

Marcelo Castro, Brazil’s health minister, said Brazil is “badly losing” the battle against the Aedes aegypti mosquito which spreads the Zika virus. Brazil will deploy nearly 220,000 members of Brazil’s armed forces to go door-to-door as part of the mosquito eradication campaign. The government would distribute mosquito repellent to some 400,000 pregnant women who receive cash-transfer benefits. The authorities in Brazil are worried that the Carnival events, scheduled for next month, and the Olympic Games, due to be held in August, may both serve to cause an even more rapid spread of the virus.

Marcelo Castro, Brazil’s health minister, said Brazil is “badly losing” the battle against the Aedes aegypti mosquito which spreads the Zika virus. The virus has been linked to birth defects.

O Globonewspaper reports that Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil’s armed forces would go door-to-door as part of the mosquito eradication campaign. The newspaper also quoted Castro to say that the government would distribute mosquito repellent to some 400,000 pregnant women who receive cash-transfer benefits.

Medical experts note that theAedes aegypti mosquito also spreadsdengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever.

“The mosquito has been here in Brazil for three decades, and we are badly losing the battle against the mosquito,” the Folha de S Paulo newspaper quoted Castro as saying at a meeting of a Zika crisis group meeting in the capital, Brasília.

The BBC reports that worry about the relentless spread of Zika has gripped the hemisphere, with warning about Zika now being issued in the United States.

Physicians and researchers suspect there is a link between Zika virus and microcephaly, a rare birth defect which sees babies born with unusually small heads. The defect can cause lasting developmental problems.

Nearly 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly have been reported in Brazil since October, compared with fewer than 150 cases in the country in all of 2014.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised pregnant women not to travel to Brazil and twenty-one other countries and territories with Zika outbreaks.

The Zika outbreak, and most of the microcephaly cases, have been concentrated in the northeastern areas of Brazil – areas which are poorer and underdeveloped relative to the rest of the country. Many cases, however, were also reported in the more prosperous southeast, where Brazil’s two largest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, are located.

The authorities in Brazil are worried that the Carnival events, scheduled for next month, and the Olympic Games, due to be held in August, may both serve to cause an even more rapid spread of the virus.