The Forgotten Virus: Zika Families and Researchers Struggle for Support
Some babies born with devastating birth defects from mosquito-borne disease are now 7 years old, but Covid has taken the world's attention away.
RECIFE, Brazil - A procession of mothers pushed children in bulky wheelchairs down a long hallway at a health center in this northeastern Brazilian city, passing by patients who glanced at the children, looked away, then looked back, quickly and uncomfortably.
The children been dressed elegantly in Disney T-shirts, striped socks, plastic sandals. The girls had ponytails tied with big knots; many wore brightly colored glasses. And all were profoundly handicapped, their limbs rigid, their mouths loose, many with sharply slanted foreheads back above their dark eyes.
Most Brazilians know as soon as they see them: They are Zika babies, whose mothers were infected with the virus while pregnant during a virulent outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease in 2015 and 2016. The main sign at birth was microcephaly, unusually small heads that hinted at the devastating brain damage the virus caused while still in utero.
Seven years later , they are now children, many of whom are almost as tall as their mothers. The sight of them visibly surprises people who haven't thought of them for years. After the Zika outbreak didn't turn into a pandemic that swept the world, Brazil and the rest of the world moved on.
This has left families in this rambling corner of Brazil, where the outbreak originated, struggling, mostly alone, to get help for their children, whose mysterious condition constantly presents new challenges. Many rely on charity, such as free physiotherapy at the private foundation where they come each week in a procession of wheelchairs. Many chair-pushing women wear T-shirts that say "Fight like a mother" in Portuguese.
It also left scientists unable to answer questions from based on the virus and the danger it could pose.
The virus is still circulating at low levels in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America, as well as South Asia. South and Southeast. But attention and funding dried up after global concerns faded, said Dr Diana Rojas Alvarez, who leads the World Health Organization's work on Zika.
"This is what happens when you have a public health emergency that affects tropical countries and doesn't have the global impact that Covid has had," she said. Initially, there was a lot of interest in developing good treatments and diagnostic tests – I remember being at a meeting where there were 40 candidate vaccines in development, but since 2017 everything has calmed down. ."
When Zika didn't cause much damage in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, cut their funding for disease-related work. In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in early 2019, has deeply...
Some babies born with devastating birth defects from mosquito-borne disease are now 7 years old, but Covid has taken the world's attention away.
RECIFE, Brazil - A procession of mothers pushed children in bulky wheelchairs down a long hallway at a health center in this northeastern Brazilian city, passing by patients who glanced at the children, looked away, then looked back, quickly and uncomfortably.
The children been dressed elegantly in Disney T-shirts, striped socks, plastic sandals. The girls had ponytails tied with big knots; many wore brightly colored glasses. And all were profoundly handicapped, their limbs rigid, their mouths loose, many with sharply slanted foreheads back above their dark eyes.
Most Brazilians know as soon as they see them: They are Zika babies, whose mothers were infected with the virus while pregnant during a virulent outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease in 2015 and 2016. The main sign at birth was microcephaly, unusually small heads that hinted at the devastating brain damage the virus caused while still in utero.
Seven years later , they are now children, many of whom are almost as tall as their mothers. The sight of them visibly surprises people who haven't thought of them for years. After the Zika outbreak didn't turn into a pandemic that swept the world, Brazil and the rest of the world moved on.
This has left families in this rambling corner of Brazil, where the outbreak originated, struggling, mostly alone, to get help for their children, whose mysterious condition constantly presents new challenges. Many rely on charity, such as free physiotherapy at the private foundation where they come each week in a procession of wheelchairs. Many chair-pushing women wear T-shirts that say "Fight like a mother" in Portuguese.
It also left scientists unable to answer questions from based on the virus and the danger it could pose.
The virus is still circulating at low levels in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America, as well as South Asia. South and Southeast. But attention and funding dried up after global concerns faded, said Dr Diana Rojas Alvarez, who leads the World Health Organization's work on Zika.
"This is what happens when you have a public health emergency that affects tropical countries and doesn't have the global impact that Covid has had," she said. Initially, there was a lot of interest in developing good treatments and diagnostic tests – I remember being at a meeting where there were 40 candidate vaccines in development, but since 2017 everything has calmed down. ."
When Zika didn't cause much damage in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, cut their funding for disease-related work. In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in early 2019, has deeply...
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