Experts Are Working Hard To Get Rid Of The Zika Virus In Brazil

As the number of birth defects linked to a mosquito-borne virus surpasses 4,000 in Brazil, and scientists scramble to create a vaccine to protect against the untreatable disease, public health officials are bracing themselves for a potential outbreak in the U.S.
The threat has some advocacy groups pushing for tighter health screenings among travelers and immigrants from Zika-afflicted countries, while public health officials and tropical disease experts argue preparing to fight the Aedes aegypti, an insect that doesn’t respond to common pesticide, is more pressing.



The Aedes aegypti— the primary vector for Zika— ravaged parts of Central and South America by infecting thousands with dengue fever and yellow fever between the ‘40s and ’60s. But in recent years, it has struck the region again after governments discontinued a reduction effort that involved spraying the controversial insecticide DDT to eradicate the pest. In most places, DDT has been banned after scientists discovered its chemicals can cause environmental wreckage, as well as vomiting, tremors and seizures among humans, as well as other life-threatening side effects.
Zika has the ability to cause birth defects.
Microcephaly, a condition that causes babies to be born with partially formed brains and abnormally small heads, has been linked to Zika and has impacted nearly 4,100 children in Brazil. In the U.S., which has reported two Zika cases that may have been sexually transmitted, at least one child, in Hawaii, has been born with microcephaly after his or her mother traveled to a Zika-afflicted country. The CDC has advised pregnant women against traveling to more than two dozen regions in the Americas, Oceania and Africa, but it has said more evidence is needed to confirm a link between the virus and microcephaly.