Rio de Janeiro: Concerns over the Zika virus reached new heights yesterday after Brazil sent fumigators into Rio de Janeiro’s world-famous Carnival venue as efforts intensified to control the mosquito-borne infection. Workers in protective overalls and goggles sprayed the Sambadrome facility two weeks before it stages next month’s celebrated parades. A senior official stoked fears by suggesting that the war against Zika — believed to cause brain defects in new-born babies — was being lost. The 90,000-capacity Sambadrome — which has hosted outdoor concerts by major acts including the late David Bowie and the Rolling Stones — is one of Rio’s best known venues and will stage events during this summer’s Olympic games. It became the unexpected focus of attention in the government’s public health campaign against Zika as Marcelo Castro, Brazil’s health minister, said 220,000 troops would go door-to-door in an attempt to eradicate the virus before the main Carnival parades start on Feb 7.
Mosquito repellent would be handed out to 400,000 women on social welfare, he said. Yet Castro appeared to undermine hopes of reassuring the public by saying that the drive to combat the virus had come too late, prompting calls for him to be sacked. The country was “badly losing the battle” against the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Zika, as well as dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever, he told a crisis meeting in Brasilia, Brazil’s capital city. “The mosquito has been here in Brazil for three decades and we are badly losing the battle against it,” he said in comments that were criticised as “fatalistic” by the Geneva-based World Health Organisation.
Zika, a virus first discovered in Uganda and previously more common in Africa and Asia, is suspected of causing microcephaly, where babies are born with unusually small heads and brain abnormalities, although no definite link has been established. Nearly 4,000 cases of microcephaly have been discovered in Brazil since last October, against 150 instances for the whole of 2014.
Concern over the virus has spread, with outbreaks reported in several other Latin American countries and the Caribbean. Officials in Brazil, Colombia and El Salvador have advised women to delay getting pregnant while America’s Centre For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently cautioned pregnant women against travelling to 13 Latin American countries, as well as Puerto Rico, a US territory, where Zika has been prevalent. In the US, many pregnant women are reported to have cancelled planned “baby moon” trips — final holidays before giving birth — amid rising concern. Some are even said to have called off holidays in places where no cases of the virus have been reported. Some expectant couples complained on social media about losing money on cancelled holidays, with travel companies refusing to reimburse the costs
Stu Privett, an HR systems specialist for the Royal College of Nursing in London, tweeted that he had cancelled a trip to Barbados, where several cases have been recorded and where he had planned to travel with his pregnant wife, who is in her first trimester. He had been unable to get a refund from Virgin Holidays, he said. “They basically said it was our choice not to go on the holiday,” Privett told Reuters. “Fundamentally, it’s a case of ‘we just lose all the money we’ve spent’.” A Virgin Holidays spokesperson said the company would look into the claim.
