Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage, possibly due to mosquito-borne virus
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The pathogen, known as Zika and first discovered in forest monkeys in Africa over 70 years ago, is the new West Nile -- a virus that causes mild symptoms in most but can lead to serious neurological complications or even death in others. Brazil's health ministry said on Nov. 28 that it had found the Zika virus in a baby with microcephaly — a rare condition in which infants are born with shrunken skulls — during an autopsy after the child died. The virus was also found in the amniotic fluid of two mothers whose babies had the condition.
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Brazil is investigating more than more than 2,400 suspected cases of microcephaly and 29 deaths of infants that occurred this year. Last year the country saw only 147 cases of microcephaly.
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This is awful. Apparently in the hardest hit areas they are indicating that women should perhaps hold off on getting pregnant for now until the outbreak is contained.
Brazil is essentially waging war with the aedes aegypti mosquito which caries the virus. They are hiring over a quarter million people to go door to door and treat areas where the mosquitoes may breed with larvicide.