Pregnant? Feds Say Avoid A Trip To Brazil

The Brazil’s health minister said his country may be losing a battle against mosquitoes carrying a virus suspected of causing birth defects.

The Brazilian government sent 200,000 plus forces to go battle the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Zika virus. That species of mosquito is also known to carry chikungunya and yellow fever. The peak season for mosquitoes in Brazil is in April.

Framingham is home to one of the largest populations of Brazilian immigrants in the United States.

“The mosquito has been here in Brazil for three decades, and we are badly losing the battle against the mosquito,” government officials told reporters, according to O Globo.

The Brazilian government announced a link between the Zika virus and microcephaly, after a spike in cases.

Nearly 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly have been reported in Brazil since October.In 2014, there were only a total of 150 cases reported in that South American country.

Zika fever is a mosquito-borne viral disease caused by Zika virus (ZIKV), consisting of mild fever, rash (mostly maculo-papular), headaches, arthralgia, myalgia, asthenia, and non-purulent conjunctivitis, occurring about two to seven days after the mosquito vector bite.

One out of four people may develop symptoms, but in those who are affected the disease is usually mild with symptoms that can last between two and seven days.

This week, however, the World Health Organization said the link has not been proven scientifically and may just be circumstantial.

However, as the spread of Zika continues across Brazil, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised pregnant women to reconsider travel to Brazil, Puerto Rico, and 21 other countries and territories with Zika outbreaks. Puerto Rico reported 18 new confirmed cases of Zika this week.

“That’s a pandemic in progress,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH, who wrote a recent Zika-related editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. “It isn’t as if it’s turning around and dying out, it’s getting worse and worse as the days go by.”

Looking to spot the spread of the birth defects, Cláudio Maierovitch, Brazil’s director of the communicable disease surveillance department at the ministry of health, advised women in high-risk areas to avoid attempting to conceive.

“Don’t get pregnant at the moment,” he said, reported the Guardian newspaper. “That’s the wisest course of action.”

Brazil is not the only country to suggest women not get pregnant. Columbia has done the same recommendation.

Brazilian newspapers are also reporting mosquito repellent has disappeared from many store shelves in Brazil.