Zika Virus: Lack of Aid from Government Systems

Melissa Lopez

WGSS 275

Blog #5

December 12, 2016

Zika Virus: Lack of Aid from Governments Systems

“Disrupting Hormonal Signals” by Langston, Nancy reminded me of the Zika virus. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Zika is an, “infection during pregnancy that can cause a birth defect of the brain called microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects. Other problems have been detected among fetuses and infants infected with Zika virus before birth, such as defects of the eye, hearing deficits, and impaired growth.” The Zika virus has been more commonly seen in Brazil, in the past years there have been many cases that we have seen on news media. As the matter of fact, the research of Langston interested me because there are similar determining factors for this knowing of a virus causing disruption in pregnant women. The Zika virus is known to be spread among the population through mosquitos, the same mosquitos that carry yellow-fever and dengue. Recently, Colombia is the second highest with new born children with this disease.Colombia

Specifically talking about the Zika virus, I want to focus on the determining factors of Zika, and how that is impacting women who are limited to government aid. On the CNN’s channel,

Zika Virus CNN Shasta Darlington traveled to the city of Recife, Brazil were they consider ground zero of the Zika virus. There she talks to mothers who are single mothers with their newly born child and the struggles that they face when they give birth to a child with microcephaly. Unlike other pregnancies, microcephaly could not and isn’t visible to the doctors until the day the child is born. Today, there are more advances that lead to the determination of whether a mother carries this virus by testing, but unfortunately there is no cure or injection that can prevent this virus from being passed on to your child.

For many families, this is causing financial burdens and the Brazil government isn’t being as cooperative as they should. Each baby is being taken care in a very specific matter, due to their inability to multi-task or respond to two different things at. Their brain is under-developed, each child attends therapy 3 times a week. As the matter of fact, Angela Rocha, doctor at Oswaldo Cruz University Hospital stated that “integrating this generation into the world would be a challenge, because they know that they are facing these under-developments of their brain development.”

According to Jailson de Barros Correia, Recife Health Secretary, there has been over 200,000 soldiers that have gone through Brazil talking to families about the disease and how to protect themselves from this virus, other than that, like I mentioned they have not found a cure for this. The only way that families, especially pregnant women to protect themselves, according to CDC,Zika Virus CDC is to constantly use insect repellent, wear long sleeved shirt and pants and to take precautions inside and outside of your home. Unfortunately, recently, Colombia reported to have more children with this disease. According to Science Mag , Colombia “is the country that has been hardest hit by the mosquito-borne.” About 476 cases of microcephaly were identified over the last eleven months.

The overall message that I want to bring up in my final blog is to think about the government aid, or lack of aid for these countries. I remember during the Olympics in Brazil, many women who planned to get pregnant or that were pregnant were encouraged to not attend Brazil, or forget about the possibility of being pregnant because there was a high chance that they could also be containing the virus. There is this idea of inequality behind this problem for many women. The videos that I present focus on women who are not part of an economically stable home, or are single mothers. The struggles that they face with their children is having to focus on the 24/7 because they need their full attention, but the government isn’t doing any sort of programming that allows for these mothers to have aid throughout the process. Yes, their child’s therapy is free, but what about food and other responsibilities at home. The government is stating the women who wanted to visit Brazil to take extra precautions but isn’t putting the full effort to those women in need. It makes me realize how the system works within women with less privileges and are set aside when they are needed aid and help the most especially in this place of despair.