Texto
Zika Is Coming
by Peter J. Hotez - April 8, 2016
Houston — IF I were a pregnant woman living on the Gulf Coast or ∈Florida, ∈ an impoverished neighborhood ∈a city like Houston, New Orleans, Miami, Biloxi, Miss., or Mobile, Ala., I would be nervous \right now. If mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus reach the United States later this spring or summer, these are the major urban areas where the sickness will spread. If we don’t intervene now, we could begin seeing newborns with microcephaly and stunted brain development on the obstetrics wards ∈ one or more of these places.
There are many theories for Zika’s rapid rise, but the most plausible is that the virus mutated from an African to a pandemic strain a decade or more ago and then spread east across the Pacific from Micronesia and French Polynesia, until it struck Brazil. There, it infected more than a million people over the last one to two years. Today, the extremely poor cities of Brazil’s northeastern states make up the epicenter of the epidemic.
There are three reasons that Zika has slammed this particular part of Brazil: the presence of the main mosquito species that carries the virus and transmits it to humans, Aedes aegypti; overcrowding; and extreme poverty
The same factors are present ∈ the poorest urban areas of coastal Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, ∈ addition to South Florida, and an area around Tucson.
It’s only April, but temperatures are hitting the 80s∈ the afternoons, and Aedes mosquitoes are already here. By May or June we will start seeing those mosquitoes ∈ much larger numbers.
Several Zika vaccines are being created, but none will be ready ∈ time for this year’s epidemic. In place of a vaccine we need a robust program of mosquito control and environmental cleanup ∈ the poorest neighborhoods of our Gulf Coast cities and ∈Florida. This should include removing garbage and debris, and installing gutters to replace drainage ditches. We need to improve access to contraception, and provide pregnant women with proper window screens for their homes and information about the risk of Zika. Finally, we will need to train teams to visit homes ∈ poor neighborhoods and instruct occupants on how to empty water containers and spray for mosquitoes, just as we are doing now ∈Puerto Rico.
This coordination is labor intensive and will not be easy, but if we don’t start working now, by the end of the year, I am afraid we will see microcephaly cases ∈Houston and elsewhere on the Gulf Coast. This could be a catastrophe to rival Hurricane Katrina or other recent miseries that disproportionately affect the poor.
Peter J. Hotez, a pediatrician and microbiologist at Texas Children’s Hospital, is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.
Disponível em http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/opinion/zika-is-coming.html acesso em 09/04/2016 (texto reduzido)
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