Still no solution to explosive spread of Zika virus
FOR weeks now, reports of the spreading Zika virus have filled the media, with cases now as close to us in the Philippines as Thailand, Singapore, and China. Brazil has remained the epicenter of the global emergency, with its health ministry issuing fresh figures late last week showing that Zika cases had gone up to 4,314, of which 462 were confirmed to be cases of microcephaly or brain damage to babies of infected mothers.
Pictures of the affected babies show the effects of microcephaly – shrunken heads indicating much smaller brains. Aside from microcephaly, the Zika virus also causes what doctors call the GuillainBarre Syndrome, in which the body’s immune system attacks the nervous system, causing muscle weakness and paralysis.
Initial reports had identified the Aedes mosquito, which also spreads dengue fever, as the principal cause of the rapid spread of the virus. But later reports said Zika is also being spread through exchange of body fluids, more specifically through sexual intercourse. This has led the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF) to call on national authorities to take intensified efforts to ensure public access to reproductive health services, notably contraceptives. A Netherlands-based non-governmental organization (NGO) Women on Web offered to aid pregnant women infected with Zika to get abortions.
Some legislators have quickly opposed the UN call and the Dutch organization’s offer, recalling the bitter fight between proponents and oppositors to the Reproductive Health Law which was approved last year by Congress over the all- out objections of the Catholic Church. Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. rejected the Dutch NGO’s offer, saying, “Right now we are not in grave danger of Zika and science may yet find a solution.”
It is truly worrying that the Zika epidemic continues to spread explosively around the world. We hope that the mosquito eradication campaigns and efforts to develop a vaccine will soon succeed. And we pray that it will not come to the point where we will be resorting to the means suggested by the UNPF and the Dutch NGO.