Posted on 01/28/2016 1:57:24 PM PST by Citizen Zed
Carolina, who lives on the vertiginous hills of a Caracas slum, says she fell pregnant with her third child last year because birth control pills went scarce.
When the mosquito-borne virus Zika - linked to severe birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil - started to spread through the Americas the homemaker, now seven months pregnant, set out to protect herself.
But repellent is also running short in crisis-hit Venezuela. And as water cuts are frequent in the slums, people keep reserve jars in store at home, a potential breeding ground for mosquitoes.
"I keep the doors closed. I can't do much more," said Carolina, 30, as she waited in line for a check-up at a state-run maternity center in southern Caracas.
Zika is the latest worry for pregnant Venezuelans, who already search high and low for scarce folic acids, medical equipment and medicines, and even diapers to have in stock for when they give birth.
Around 4,700 cases of potential Zika infection have been reported in the country, Venezuela's Health Minister Luisana Melo told state television on Thursday in the first official estimate, vowing fumigation efforts and training for medical personnel.
It was unclear how many pregnant women have been infected with the virus.
Many doctors and health activists worry that the country will be ill-equipped to fight the virus as it grapples with economic crisis and constant shortages of consumer goods and medicines. With no vaccine or cure for the virus, much of the fight against the outbreak is going to depend on protecting people from mosquito bites and reducing the mosquito population.
"We're exposed like no other country in Latin America for this to be a pandemic," said Huniades Urbina, president of the Venezuelan Paediatrics Society, who is critical of the leftist government of Nicolas Maduro.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Meanwhile in Bernie’s socialist paradise ...
I’ve seen debates on whether mosquitoes should be made extinct through gene manipulation. It looks like the zika virus may well be the best argument for doing so.
Right — do you know what the best way would be to get the “scarce folic acids, medical equipment and medicines”, diapers, repellent and antidotes to poor, pregnant Carolina would be? Institute Capitalism in the country. Capitalism would create a wealthy society that, once it achieved a certain level of wealth, would have a cheap distribution system in place and perhaps even drug companies that made so much money that they would hand out generic versions of the repellent to poor pregnant women for free.
“It looks like the zika virus may well be the best argument for doing so.”
—
EEE is no day at the beach either.
.
Why not just quit pinching off litters of new humans that are not needed until this is under control.
Nah! Just ship ‘em all over our southern border. We need new diseases and medical emergencies. Obamacare is thirsting for more (voters) business.
Rachel Carson smiles from the grave....
Within the next year or two, American women will be running scared, too.
Both of my ‘kids’ are in their 20’s and looking to start or expand their families. This is scaring the hell out of them.
The virus doesn’t care about economic class or politics.
Who doesn’t get bit by mosquitoes? Are capitalists immune?
Many are fighting the socialist...
Bernie-nomics.
Zika has been identified since the 1940s. It’s a mild disease for the victim and they haven’t actually determined that it’s related to microcephaly.
Any virus, including the common cold, can cause birth defects, depending on the time of development when the mother gets it.
If they want to stop transmission, all they have to do is spray DDT, the most effective anti-mosquito treatment. This is the same mosquito, btw, that Dr Walter Reed identified as the carrier of yellow fever (a 19th century scourge of the southern and coastal US) and other diseases.
But the UN is now telling these countries to tell their women not to have children for two years (even though their population is their only strength). Soon there will be mandatory abortions, which has been the goal of Planned Parenthood and the UN for decades.
This is heartbreaking for the babies and the families. Prayers for them all. I hope that some semblance of sanity will prevail and the govt will start spraying with DDT.
This is heartbreaking for the babies and the families. Prayers for them all. I hope that some semblance of sanity will prevail and the govt will start spraying with DDT.
Bringing back DDT is a good interim solution, too.
The CDC gives some tentative reassurance to mothers to be:
We do not know the risk to an infant if a woman is infected with Zika virus while she is pregnant. Zika virus usually remains in the blood of an infected person for only a few days to a week. The virus will not cause infections in an infant that is conceived after the virus is cleared from the blood. There is currently no evidence that Zika virus infection poses a risk of birth defects in future pregnancies. A women contemplating pregnancy, who has recently travelled to an area with local Zika transmission, should consult her healthcare provider after returning.
When they say “currently no evidence” it means they don’t know 100%. If a person has been infected, the safest path is to wait a while while the virus is being studied.
fell pregnant
just what Venezuela needs — More Pinheads.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.