ScrAPES#16: Latin America's Fight Against Mosquito-Borne Diseases
by Simon Romero
January 17, 2016
The Latin American or Caribbean countries are facing a bountiful amount of Mosquito-Borne Diseases. Brazil has deployed soldiers to wipe out habitats where mosquitoes lives. Colombia is discharging mosquitoes that are treated with a bacteria that restricts their capacity to spread disease. Mexico is examining the first vaccine against dengue fever (a mosquito-borne viral disease occurring in tropical or subtropical areas). The United States advised pregnant women to delay their travels to more than a dozen Latin American or Caribbean countries, including Puerto Rico, where mosquitoes are promptly enlarging the reach of Zika (the virus linked to a surge in cases of infants born with brain damage). The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), stated a debate across Latin America over the growing vulnerability to mosquito-borne diseases. A Brazilian tourism minister, Henrique Alves, argued towards the CDC that the Brazilian authorities were taking measures to prevent Zika from expanding widely, though there are approximately 3,500 cases of microcephaly, an extraordinary condition linked to Zika in which infants are born with abnormally small heads.
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| Baby effected with microcephaly. |
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| This is the "ugly" people. |
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| This is the "pretty" people. |
This is interesting to me because this is the first time I have heard of Zika or other mosquito-borne diseases. When I read this article the first thing that came into mind when I saw the words mosquito and disease was Malaria, which is a disease caused by a plasmodium parasite transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes. When I used to watch tons of Wild or Animal Planet shows, mosquitoes were proven to be the highest animals or insect to kill humans because of Malaria. I cannot believe that Zika would have an effect towards babies who were born with due to contact by the pregnant mother. How can a baby develop a small head through a mosquito? Recently I watched a video from a youtuber called Top5s and I watched a video about how the future would turn out to be. One of them was that humans will develop ONLY two races; the ugly and the good-looking. The ugly had a small head and a very disgusting looking body. While the good-looking had a bigger head and eyes, no hairs, etc. It also said that the human race will only be one, which is tan. This makes me wonder whether or not the Top5s' theory on the future of humans is true due to Zika. Is Zika deadly and can be treated?
This is important to the environment because of the mosquito-borne diseases increases widely can effect more pregnant women and effect other countries. If a pregnant woman was to travel to one of the Latin American or Caribbean countries and get infected by the microcephaly and did not know and traveled back to the United States, there might be a possibility that the woman will spread it in the United States. And if majority of the population of the world got infected by the microcephaly, the new generation of children will be different. If babies with the disease can survive successfully then there might be two kinds of children. That is ridiculous. The disease can also effect the population because the population may decrease IF it is not stopped.
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