Pregnancy fears in Latin America as Zika spreads

Since Zika arrived in Latin America last year, there has been a rampant increase in babies born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, a birth defect that can cause brain damage and death.

Estafany Perreira holds her nephew David Henrique Ferreira, 5 months, who has microcephaly in Recife, Brazil. In the last four months, authorities have recorded close to 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants. Mario Tama/Getty Images
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SAN SALVADOR // Don’t get pregnant for the next two years. That is the warning El Salvador’s government has issued women as Zika, a tropical virus blamed for causing severe birth defects, sweeps Latin America and the Caribbean.

But a spate of such recommendations from health officials in several countries has drawn derision in a region where activists say women have little control over their bodies in the first place.

Since Zika, a mosquito-borne, flu-like disease that originated in Africa, arrived in Latin America last year, there has been a rampant increase in babies born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, a birth defect that can cause brain damage and death.

And short of not getting pregnant, there is no foolproof method for avoiding risk.

Brazil has been hit hardest: the country has recorded at least 3,893 microcephaly cases since last October. Previously an annual average of 160 cases was the norm.

Forty-nine of those babies have died.

“If I hadn’t already been pregnant when the information spread, I would have definitely postponed it so I wouldn’t have to go through all this stress,” said Manuela Mehl, who is 16 weeks’ pregnant, in Rio de Janeiro.

“Obviously, you’ll take care of your baby as best you can, but raising a child with neurological problems requires a lot of attention and dedication on the parents’ part ... It’s a very difficult situation. It’s difficult to even think about.”

Brazil is reportedly mobilising more than 200,000 troops to go “house to house” in the battle against Zika-carrying mosquitoes, signalling a major ramping up of efforts against the virus.

Soldiers will fan out to homes across Brazil distributing leaflets and dispensing advice, health minister Marcelo Castro was quoted as saying by the newspaper O Globo on Monday.

Mr Castro said that the government, under growing pressure to deal with the crisis, will also hand out repellent to at least 400,000 pregnant women on social welfare.

A surge in incidents of Zika across Latin America has prompted the United States and other governments to warn pregnant women against travelling to the region – an alarming prospect for Brazil as it gears up to welcome the Olympics to Rio de Janeiro in August.

Unlike some other international health scares, the Zika virus is not spread person to person. And for most people who get infected, the flu-like symptoms will clear up in about a week.

But the specific threat to pregnant women and their foetuses, and the seeming impossibility of avoiding mosquitoes in tropical countries, is provoking great concern among authorities.

Fearing a generation marred by high rates of severe disability, several health ministries in the region have called on women to postpone pregnancy.

Colombia, where 11,613 people have been confirmed as infected with Zika and some 100 babies born with microcephaly, issued the same recommendation as El Salvador, but for a period of six months. El Salvador has 5,397 cases of Zika.

Ecuador warned women in “at-risk” areas against getting pregnant indefinitely. Jamaica, which has not detected any cases of the virus but warns it could be next, advised putting off pregnancy for six to 12 months.

The advise has been mocked in some quarters and in others criticised as out-of-touch for a region plagued by high rates of violence against women, where many countries outlaw abortion and access to family planning is limited, especially for the poor.

“In a continent where unwanted pregnancies abound, it’s completely naive to recommend women delay pregnancy,” said Monica Roa, an abortion-rights advocate in Colombia and vice president of Women’s Link International.

“There needs to be an information campaign for women who are currently pregnant about the risks and the options,” she added, calling the public health epidemic a “tragedy” but also an opportunity to improve sex education in the region.

“You can’t just make mythical announcements that make people laugh. You need to attack the disease in people’s homes, at workplaces, in schools,” said Salvadoran labour leader Francisco Zelada, head of the national teachers’ union.

After controversy erupted over the pregnancy warnings, Salvadoran health minister Violeta Menjivar toned down her ministry’s message, saying the “government doesn’t regulate births”.

Salvadoran authorities have since limited their recommendations to telling schoolgirls to wear trousers instead of skirts to avoid mosquito bites.

Criticism has also erupted in Colombia, which offered no concrete advise on how to avoid pregnancy.

* Agence France-Pesse