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Over the past month or so, a mysterious force has been sweeping across parts of South America, and other places. Babies with tiny heads are its victims. Rather, its victims end up being born with tiny heads. Mothers affected by the Zika virus seem to be giving birth to children with Microecephaly, a congenital condition that manifests as a shrunken cranium and incomplete brain development.
The above AP photo shows Sophia, who was born with microecephaly, at two weeks old, catching a nap ahead of her physical therapy session at the Pedro I hospital in Campina Grande, Paraiba, Brazil, on Friday, February 12. Microecephaly was linked to the Zika virus by the recent surge in the number of babies being born with the incurable defect. At the time of writing, as many as 40 infants have died from microecephaly, which has multiplied 20-fold since last year. Believing it to be linked to Zika, the World Health Organisation even declared the spread of the mosquito-borne virus an "extraordinary event and public health threat".
In this Reuters photo, 29-year-old Daniele Santos combs the hair of her two-month-old son Juan Pedro, born with microcephaly, at their house in Recife, Brazil on February 9. It's not just the young 'uns. Mothers have been advised to delay their pregnancies in view of the outbreak. And other ailments are also being correlated with the spurt in Zika, such as...
... the Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a disorder in which the immune system attacks the nervous system, causing muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis. In this AP photo, Zulay Balza fails to close her eyes as neurologist Jairo Lizarazo tests her facial muscles at the Erasmo Meoz Hospital in Cucuta, State of Norte de Santander, Colombia, on Thursday, February 11. According to the Health Institute of Norte de Santander, 30 cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome were diagnosed in the State since the latest Zika outbreak, a 10-fold increase in the State's yearly average. Balza doesn't know if she has the Zika virus, while only one in five people infected with Zika show symptoms, according to her neurologist.
The mosquito-borne virus has also prompted concern among athletes and sports officials around the world as they prepare for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, too. The Olympic Park, which will host Rio's 2016 Olympics, is seen under construction in this AP photo. The gloomy sheen around this magnificent AP aerial photo is suggestive of the pall that the Zika virus has cast over the city. The Olympics will offer 28 sports, 300 events, 10,500 athletes and, with the exception of five football venues, it's all packed into Rio for 17 days. The Paralympics add two more weeks, and thousands more athletes. So, clearly, a lot riding on the success of the global sporting event.
In this AP image, army soldiers set up a banner that reads in Portuguese, "A mosquito is not stronger than a whole country", at the Central station, in Rio on Saturday, February 13. More than 200,000 army, navy and air force troops are fanning out across Brazil to show people how to eliminate...
...the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which spreads the Zika virus, which many health officials believe is linked to severe birth defects. The nationwide offensive is part of President Dilma Rousseff's declared war on the virus that has quickly spread across the Americas.
A health worker fumigates a cemetery ( Hm. Ironic ) of Presbitero Maestro in Lima, Peru as part of the preventive measures against Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases, on February 12, as seen in this Reuters photo.
In this AP photo, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff and Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes (at right) talk to a local resident as they stand under a banner that reads in Portuguese "Zero Zika" during the launch of the Zero Zika national campaign, in Rio on Saturday.
As Navy personnel were designated (as seen in this Getty Images photo) to go around passing out pamphlets in homes...
... Brazillian Army soldiers went about on foot in public space, such as on Copacabana beach as seen in this February 13 Getty Images photo, warning civilians of the dangers of the Zika virus and how to protect against mosquitoes.
And new technological equipment has been mobilised on a war-footing. Here in this New York Times image, the Arro-Gun Spray System is exhibited at an annual meeting of the American Mosquito Control Association, in Savannah, Georgia, on February 10. The threat of the Zika virus spreading in the United States has lent an urgency to this year's convention, and many here say traditional mosquito control techniques need to be rethought now. Indeed, the matter has gone to the laboratory...
In this Getty Images photo, a biologist technician in the Oxitec laboratory in Campinas, near Sao Paolo, works with genetically modified mosquitoes on February 11. Oxitec is releasing these GM mosquitoes to combat the Zika virus. The laboratory is operating from Piracicaba, which had a dengue outbreak last summer with 132 cases. It's kind of like biological warfare...
... albeit the natural kind. The reasoning behind engineering genetically modified mosquitos is that when they are released into the affected areas (as seen in this Getty Images pic), they will compete with the indigenous wild mosquitos and erradicate them. The lab will release 250,000 genetically modified mosquitoes in two neighborhoods with a high incidence of the Aedes aegypti mosquito. These GM mosquitoes don't bite. They mate with the females and the offspring die. That way, the mosquito population crashes. The population of mosquitoes has been reduced by about 90% in about six months in every case, according to Oxitec.
But is the Zika virus really as dangerous as it has been made out to be? And is it really causing the physiological defects in children and mothers? As always, the usual culprit in this case is now turning out to be the human hand.
As recently as February 10, Argentine doctors have questioned this seemingly correlative link between the Zika and Microecephaly. They propose that the rise in Microecephaly has got more to do with the infusion of pesticide Pyriproxifen into the drinking water in 2014. This alternative theory, asserted by Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns (PCST), has found support from the Brazilian Association for Collective Health (ABRASCO), which named Pyriproxyfen as a likely cause of the birth defects on newborns and has condemned the strategy of chemical control of Zika-carrying mosquitoes. In the AP photo above, trash floats in the Meriti River, which flows into Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro.
Pyriproxyfen is a chemical larvicide. So, it disables or kills larva. But it also disrupts the hormonal endocrine system and is "teratogenic", meaning it causes birth defects.
Zika outbreaks have never been associated with physiological or congenital defects, says PCST. Its effects have been largely mild and treatable. In the above AP photo, health workers spray insecticide around the premises of the Sambadrome, an outdoor carnival ground in Rio de Janeiro.
Not to say that the virus doesn't deserve to be eradicated. Nor to say that Rousseff's intense campaign against the Zika virus was a red-herring chase. But it's revealing that the Aedes Aegypti may have been villainised for a crime that humans themselves commited. It's revealing of how often humans are the cause of most of their problems, and how much damage-control expenditure is therefore avoidable, and how underprepared society often is to meet the consequences of its own ill-advised actions.
