Public Health Perspectives: Zika’s Impact On Millennials; The Disease’s Demographic And Social Implications
Editorial writers and columnists offer their thoughts on this mosquito-borne illness as well as cholera, yellow fever and Lyme disease.
The New York Times:
Zika: The Millennials’ S.T.D.?
I am a millennial; half my peers are single and on Tinder, half are getting ready to start families. I’m also a scientist, working toward a master’s degree in bioethics. And I am more and more worried about Zika. This summer, I co-wrote a guide for travelers to Rio de Janeiro about how to stay healthy in a place where Zika infection is common. After the Olympics’ closing ceremony, I worry that Americans will stop paying attention to the virus. They shouldn’t. (Kelly McBride Folkers, 8/20)
The Hill:
The Social Implications Of Zika
Even if military and medical might could eliminate every single trace of Zika, the social, environmental and political conditions that made Brazil, Florida, and Puerto Rico vulnerable to the rapid spread of a new infectious disease remain in place. These conditions include, global warming, movements of populations into overcrowded urban areas, and attitudes and policies that restrict women’s sexual and reproductive rights. (Susan Sered, 8/19)
The Washington Post:
We Know How To Fight Zika In Puerto Rico — But We Aren’t Giving Women The Tools To Do It
In June, when I was on the ground in Puerto Rico working with local providers at community health centers to help stop the spread of Zika, a virus that has become a public health emergency, there were 130 cases of Zika-positive pregnancies on the island. Since then, that number has shot up to about 900 and, today, there are probably many more. Unfortunately, I had little to share with her that day other than the typical lines: We don’t know much, she should stay protected if she can with mosquito nets and condoms. During pregnancy, a woman often worries about the food she’s eating, if she’s sleeping in the right position. The threat of Zika doesn’t just alter the equation: It blows it up. (Kristyn Brandi, 8/22)
USA Today:
Pregnant Woman: No Reprieve From Worry Over Zika
Pregnant women across the United States are living in fear of Zika every single day. The economic and emotional costs of this virus are astronomical and growing, with new cases in Miami Beach sounding the latest alarm. Yet the American public and some elected officials are downplaying a public health crisis that threatens an entire generation of babies. I am one of those pregnant women, one with a master’s degree in public health. I plan my life around a tiny insect that could cause devastating birth defects to my unborn child. There is no reprieve from the planning. And when all the precautions fail to prevent the dreaded mosquito bite, there is no reprieve from the worry. (Kelsey Mishkin Gardner, 8/21)
Miami Herald:
U.N. Ran From Role In Haiti’s Cholera Outbreak
Like climate change deniers, the United Nations for years has stood virtually alone against the weight of scientific opinion on its own peacekeepers’ responsibility for the outbreak of cholera six years ago in Haiti, which continues to suffer from the world’s worst epidemic of that deadly disease. (8/21)
The New York Times:
A Yellow Fever Epidemic Made Worse By A Vaccine Shortage
As Zika was moving north from Brazil to the United States, a different mosquito-borne disease — yellow fever — was cutting a devastating trail through Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, killing more than 400 people and sickening thousands. This epidemic is not yet over, and, like Ebola in West Africa, it has exposed glaring weaknesses in how the world confronts infectious diseases. (8/20)
The New York Times:
A Natural Cure For Lyme Disease
So it’s worrisome that in recent decades, Lyme cases have surged, nearly quadrupling in Michigan and increasing more than tenfold in Virginia. It’s now the “single greatest vector-borne disease in the United States,” Danielle Buttke, an epidemiologist with the National Park Service in Fort Collins, Colo., told me, and it’s “expanding on a really epic scale.” What’s behind the rise of Lyme? Many wildlife biologists suspect that it is partly driven by an out-of-whack ecosystem. (Moises Velasquez-Manoff, 8/20)
