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 In the sprawling coastal city of Recife, panic has struck maternity
wards since Zika - a mosquito-borne virus first detected in the
Americas last year - was linked to wave of brain damage in newborns.
There is no vaccine or known cure for the poorly understood disease.
In about four-fifths of cases, Zika causes no noticeable symptoms so
women have no idea if they contracted it during pregnancy. Test kits
for the virus are only effective in the first week of infection and
only available at private clinics at a cost of 900 reais, more than
the monthly minimum wage.
At Recife's IMIP hospital, dozens of soon-to-be mothers wait
anxiously for ultrasound scans that will indicate whether the child
they are carrying has a shrunken head and damaged brain, a condition
called microcephaly. The hospital has already had 160 babies born
there with the deformity since August.
"It's very frightening. I'm worried my daughter will have
microcephaly," says Elisangela Barros, 40, shedding a tear behind
her thick-rimmed glasses. "My neighborhood is poor and full of
mosquitoes, trash and has no running water. Five of my neighbors
have Zika."
Women like Barros, who live in crowded, muddy slums of Brazil's
chaotic cities, have little defense against the Aedes aegypti
mosquito that carries Zika, as well as other diseases such as dengue
and yellow fever. They often cannot afford insect repellent and have
little access to family planning.
Shocking images of babies with birth defects have made many women
think twice about getting pregnant.
Doctors worry the outbreak will lead to an increase in dangerous
clandestine abortions in the majority-Catholic country. Under
Brazilian law, terminating pregnancies is illegal except in cases of
rape and when the mothers' life is at risk.
The rapid spread of Zika to 22 countries in the Americas has
prompted some governments to advise women to delay having children.
El Salvador recommended women not get pregnant for two years.
[http://reut.rs/1JwW4AT]
It has also triggered debate on liberalizing abortion in the region,
where many countries have strict laws.
"Fear is growing among women because this is a new disease that we
know little about. We don't have many answers," said Adriana
Scavuzzi, a gynecologist at the IMIP hospital.
THALIDOMIDE TRAGEDY
Brazil's health ministry said as of Jan. 23 there were 270 confirmed
cases of microcephaly and a further 3,448 suspected cases since
October are being investigated -- by far the most in the Americas.
World Health Organization officials say there is no scientific proof
that Zika stunts the development of the fetus, causing microcephaly,
but it is strongly suspected.
Ninety percent of children born with the condition will have
retarded mental and physical development, and will need specialized
care for the rest of their lives. There is no certainty what they
will be able to see or hear, or when they will learn to walk and
talk, Scavuzzi said.
Scavuzzi compared the emergency to the Thalidomide tragedy of the
1960s when thousands of children, mostly in Europe, were born with
deformed limbs due to the use of the pill to help pregnant women
with insomnia and morning sickness.
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"It will be worse than the Thalidomide generation because then the
cause could be withdrawn from the market," she said. "But how do you
withdraw from circulation a mosquito that has lived with us for so
long?"
Zika, first identified in Uganda in 1947 and unknown in the Americas
until discovered in Brazil last year, causes a mild fever and body
aches, symptoms that disappear in five days and can be mistaken for
dengue, a virus that infected 1.6 million Brazilians last year.
With a health crisis on its hands, Brazil's government says women
who want to get pregnant should discuss the risks with their doctors
but has stopped short of telling them to delay.
Instead, it plans to hand out insect repellent to tens of thousands
of low-income pregnant women and is stepping up an offensive to
eradicate the mosquito with the help of the army.
ABORTION ILLEGAL
Public health experts expect Zika will lead to an increase in
illegal abortions. An estimated 1 million are already carried out
every year in Brazil.
Botched procedures in clandestine clinics using sharp tools,
over-the-counter medicines and no sterilization are already a major
cause of maternal deaths.
"Zika is a health catastrophe and a terrifying menace for pregnant
women," said Daniel Becker, a pediatrician and public health expert
in Rio de Janeiro. "People will look for an abortion."
Women's rights organizations are advocating legal abortion in the
case of women who contract Zika, a move that so far has been only
taken by Colombia's health ministry.
In Brazil, a group of researchers, activists and lawyers plans to
petition the Supreme Court to allow abortions for women who have the
virus, by-passing an increasingly conservative Congress where
Evangelical lawmakers are backing a bill to restrict abortion even
in cases of rape.
The same group won a ruling in 2012 to extend legal abortion to
anencephaly, a defect in which the baby is born without parts of the
skull and brain and almost always dies shortly after.
With Brazil's health care system already over-stretched, the future
for many mothers could be grim if the Supreme Court does not act,
said Debora Diniz, a law professor leading the campaign.
"We will soon have a generation of poor women whose destiny will be
to look after extremely dependent children full-time," she said.
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Additional reporting by Antonia Eklund
in Rio de Janeiro and Julia Cobb in Bogota; Editing by Kieran
Murray)
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