Zika Virus: Latin America's Ills Compound Crisis

02/01/2016 - 11h25

Isla de León, a slum on the outskirts of Cartagena on Colombia's Caribbean coast, is a lesson in how to manufacture and transmit the mosquito-borne Zika virus. Ramshackle hovels with dirt floors, crooked wooden walls and zinc roofs line sun-baked unpaved streets. In the rainy season, conditions resemble the swamp on which the neighbourhood was built.

"Of course the mosquitoes are a problem, especially at night," says Ingrid Tordecillos, 24, pointing at the pools of green water that flank her house, where flies skate across the surfaces.

She has already suffered from three attacks of Zika and two of her three children have fallen ill from the virus, which has been linked to devastating birth defects and neurological problems in adults.

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Across the Amazon rainforest on the other side of the continent, Brazil is readying 220,000 members of its armed forces to fight its own battle against Zika, after more than 4,000 cases of microcephaly - babies born with deformed, small heads - were recorded in the past four months.

The emerging epidemic, which has spread to 23 countries in the Americas, could not have come at a worse time for the region. Reeling from the end of the China-led commodities super cycle, Latin America has been accused of being slow to combat the virus, which the World Health Organisation warned this week was spreading "explosively" and could affect as many as 4m people in the Americas.

In Brazil - the origin of the region's outbreak and the worst-hit country - critics say the authorities' inability to respond quickly by co-ordinating simple measures such as checking homes for stagnant water has only further exposed the country's political and economic paralysis.

A few years ago Latin America's biggest economy was considered part of the solution to global financial ills and a model in battling epidemics following its successful HIV/Aids programme in the 1990s. But on both counts it is now part of the problem, says Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

"Facing a self-imposed economic calamity that obviously reduces funding for healthcare, the country is deploying available resources, including the armed forces, but faces difficulties to harness its capacity to respond to a health emergency," says Mr Sotero.

"Instead of offering solutions, the country has become the epicentre of a problem that could be avoided by the use of basic preventive strategies at the community level, in co-ordination with municipal, state and federal agencies."

Brazil's defence ministry only announced a comprehensive plan on Wednesday to combat the virus - including the deployment of the army, navy and air force - following warnings from international bodies.

Other Latin American nations have proved equally helpless in the face of the virus's rapid spread, resorting to somewhat farcical bans on procreation. In El Salvador the government has urged women to delay pregnancy until 2018. In Colombia, which has the second-highest Zika infection rate after Brazil, the health ministry has suggested couples refrain from conception for six months. Jamaica has issued similar advice.

In Latin America, a predominantly Catholic continent where abortion is largely banned and contraception not always readily available, it is a naive strategy at best, say campaigners.

In Rio de Janeiro, authorities are putting their faith in the weather gods. In less than 200 days more than a million tourists are expected to descend on the city for the 2016 Olympic Games. While organisers say they have been checking Olympic venues on a daily basis for mosquito infestations, they hope the colder and drier weather in August will also help.

"I am worried, not just about the Olympics but I'm worried for the city and for Brazil," Eduardo Paes, Rio's mayor, told the Financial Times. "But the Olympics comes at a time when the weather is drier and not a high-frequency period for mosquitoes."

<>The Olympics is not just a concern for Rio but for any country whose citizens travel to the event. Researchers suspect that the Zika virus, which was first identified in Uganda in 1947, arrived in Brazil only two years ago with the influx of tourists for the World Cup, says Wilson Savino, a researcher at Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation.

Scientists have linked Zika and microcephaly but it is not yet clear that the virus alone is responsible for the surge in birth defects. Fears have also grown over links with the rare Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can cause paralysis and even death.

"Nobody knows two things still: why [Zika] spread so fast . . . and why in Brazil there is such an increase in microcephaly," says Mr Savino, adding that it will probably be more than five years before a vaccine is widely available.

In the meantime, researchers are working on ways to test for the virus as well as experiments to inhibit its transmission.

"This is a completely new health issue for the planet, nobody could have expected this," says Mr Savino. "The most important thing is not to say that it took too long [to deal with the outbreak] . . . this is a global health issue and it demands solidarity and co-operation."

In the meantime some are taking drastic measures.

Patrícia and Rodolfo, a wealthy couple in their late 30s from São Paulo, had been considering moving to New York but decided to bring forward their plans so they can start a family.

"I don't want to wait too much longer and who knows when they'll get this thing under control," says Patricia.

Additional reporting by John Paul Rathbone, Benedict Mander and Andres Schipani in Cartagena

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016