Three months ago, when she entered the delivery room, she looked forward to having a healthy and lively baby. But sadly, Roziline Ferreira, a native of Recife– Brazil, did not quite leave the room cradling her bundle of joy in her arms; she put to bed a baby boy with an unusually small head—a condition described as microcephaly in medical parlance. Now she is saddled with this additional responsibility; having to cope with an incurable condition that can involve seizures, impaired cognitive development, delayed motor functions, problems with speech and dwarfism against the backdrop of overwhelming poverty.

But Roziline Ferreira is just one of the numerous unhappy mothers; the New York Times reports that “as many as 1.5 million people in Brazil are believed to have been infected, and the virus has spread to more than 20 Latin American countries” since 2014. In a related development, Reuters report from Colombia states that “health officials had found more than 2,100 pregnant women who are infected with the virus.” Yet before the epidemic, Brazil recorded only about 150 cases of microcephaly a year.

Based on available evidences, there seem to be a link between Zika virus and microcephaly in infants. But is this connection strong enough to conclude that Zika virus is one of the causes of microcephaly in infants? Recently, on Monday February 1, 2016, the World Health Organization rose from a meeting to declare the recent cluster of Zika virus- related microcephaly and other neurological abnormalities a public health emergency of international concern. Margaret Chan observed that though the link is strong and suspicious but it would be subjected to more scientific studies before conclusions could be reached.
Now according to experts, the Zika epidemic has spread much faster than science’s understanding of it. This would be because behind the Zika headlines, there are underlying drivers of disease risk that are not getting sufficient attention. For instance, the vector of Zika virus-a specie of the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, has been expanding its range over the past few decades. Jeremy Farrar, head of the U.K based Wellcome Trust told The Guardian that “it loves urban life and has spread across the entire tropical belt of the planet, and of course that belt is expanding as global warming takes effect”.

Global warming and El Nino apart, certain habits of the worrisome pests make it even harder to check its spread; mosquito thrives in trash-strewn, puddly cities, bites in daylight rendering the use of mosquito net as a preventive measure ineffective. Bearing the habit of the mosquito in mind, Mike Turner, head of infection and immuno-biology at the Wellcome Trust noted that “only extreme measures such as the use of DDT to eradicate Aedes aegypti as quickly as possible, are likely to contain the Zika threat”. Yet these aspects of the Zika virus-microcephaly equation are sadly, not getting enough attention.
Learn more on:
http://zemellive.com/zika-virus-prevention-kill-mosquitoes-and-use-a-condom/

God will save us from the outbreak of deadly disease.