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THE INTERVIEW OF CECILIA OROZCO , 23 JAN 2016 - 9:19 PM
"The critical year of 2016 will Zika"
Alejandro Gaviria, Health Minister accurate information about the virus transmitted by a mosquito of African origin: the first is the endemic epidemic then. Slight in many cases, the zika may, however, cause microcephaly in infants and paralytic adult Guillain-Barr?.
By: Cecilia Orozco Tascon
There have been many jokes in radio programs and digital networks for the message of the Ministry of Health in which couples are asked to postpone for a few months their decision to have children to avoid pregnancy in mothers affected by the zika. Do you have imagined that this could be one of the reactions that could occur in the population or took them by surprise?
We knew it was a complicated issue and anticipated some controversy. We also knew that other countries had decided to do the same campaign. We discussed the issue with doctors, public health specialists and epidemiologists. Almost everyone agreed. One objective of the message was to communicate the risk involved have the disease properly. That goal was achieved because people spent the joke to genuine concern and know that this is serious. So serious that, following our example, El Salvador and Honduras also decided to recommend postponement of pregnancies. Brazilian authorities, for their part, acknowledge that they should have done before.
I confess I do not understand why some commentators seemed funny theme being so dramatic, since it warns that the baby of a mother infected may suffer microcephaly. Maybe the message was not as clear as you thought?
No. Mildly or wrongly, some understood our message as a call to abstinence, when they need not have made that connection. Adults should know the difference between a subject and another.
The truth is that some interpreted that you were asking to suspend sex couples, while others claimed that the zika, besides the mosquito, is also transmitted through sexual transmission. True or false?
There is no evidence that it is a sexually transmitted disease. That is another myth among many others. We said that couples should consider deferring pregnancy, not sex. It is not an invitation to chastity. It is a call to use family planning methods to a serious situation and not fully preventable. We respect the autonomy and freedom of couples and let's take this situation to intensify our compa?as sex education.
With what messages or what?
"Always with condom. Obvious! "It will be our message. It is now more important than ever. ( See the video here )
With findings based on which it was established that the zika contracted by a pregnant woman can cause fetal microcephaly?
The mechanisms are not fully known, although the connection is already established: the zika cause microcephaly. However, it should be noted that not happen in all cases. Again, not all pregnant women who have contracted zika have children with microcephaly. About one thousand fetuses of infected mothers, would suffer. Keep in mind that there is still uncertainty about it.
The connection between the zika terms, pregnancy and microcephaly has led to relate to another topic: abortion. The lawyer who has led the campaign to legalize abortion in Colombia, Monica Roa, said that pregnant women who contract zika have the right to abort. What do you think?
Abortion on our message has been clear: the decision of the mother, as stated by the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court on many occasions. The doctor evaluates the risk to women's health, including their mental health, and she decides. In short, women may choose abortion is at risk if their physical or mental health.
Do not fear the reaction of the prosecutor? You might end up being investigated by Ordonez, as interior minister he is going ...
I have had many debates with the prosecutor that since I lost my fear (laughs) ...
How long after birth must give the baby monitor to see if suffer microcephaly?
About a year. Only then full assurance of the absence of health problems the baby will.
Does the mosquito that transmits zika is the same that produces dengue and chikungunya or different varieties of insects?
It's the same: it is a mosquito that lives inside houses, use clean water to breed and is present in much of the country.
Is dirty and standing water is also the fountainhead of these insects? Not in these places where the bugs breed?
No. That is a widespread but mistaken belief. The malaria mosquito is using dirty water. Conversely, the transmitting dengue, chikungunya zika and reproduced in clean water.
Are insects zika transmitters can only live and reproduce in warm climates and at low heights or may occur in climates of over 20 degrees Celsius while the height of the region is above 2,200 meters, as in Bogot? this season El Nino?
With climate change, mosquito habitat is changing. Earlier we talked about your half was in municipalities below 1,800 meters. Now we refer to municipalities below 2,200. Bogota is not currently present mosquito.
So what geographical areas of Colombia are safe from these diseases in not absolute, since it is understood that there is migration?
Essentially Andean plateaus and slopes, Bogota and Tunja, on one side; Pasto and surroundings, Manizales and eastern Antioquia, among others. Your question brings to mind the statement of Miguel Samper in his study Misery in Bogota, written in the nineteenth century (1867). There, he said Colombia was formed by small islands of health in an ocean of disease.
How is it similar to or different dengue, and chikungunya zika, and what is more serious for whom the contracts?
Dengue is the most dangerous and has the highest mortality. The chikungunya produces the most disabling symptoms, especially strong joint pains. For its part, the zika have milder symptoms and is asymptomatic in one in five people, but can cause serious neurological consequences such as bringing microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome, among others.
Why and how medical certainty has recently spoken of a possible connection between the much more serious than previous zika and evil Guillain-Barre syndrome,?
As with the connection between Zika and microcephaly, in this case there is a strong association suggests a causal link. The figures are still uncertain, but one in every thousand infected zika could develop Guillain-Barre syndrome.
What the analysts are based to establish this partnership?
The figures disclosed recently in Brazil, El Salvador and French Polynesia. In Colombia we observed, in recent years, a substantial increase in reports of Guillain-Barre.
When the Guillain-Barre syndrome is acquired by contagion zika, is the paralysis that occurs is permanent or reversed when passing the effects of mosquito bites?
There is still a lot of knowledge, because this is a new phenomenon for science. Apparently, cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome associated with zika are milder than those associated with other infections. And most of those affected recover fully.
How many confirmed cases of Guillain-Barre microcephaly and transmitted by zika there in Colombia, according to statistics from the ministry in charge?
Twelve suspected cases of Guillain-Barre to who we are following up. As for microcephaly, none have yet proven, but we expect about 400 this year.
What underlying this expectation?
In extrapolating the experience of Brazil.
Why do you talk of preventing the insect bite for six months? Is it a time of accelerated playback or mosquito favorable conditions for him due to the phenomenon of drought in the country?
Preventive measures against mosquito are permanent. In the case of microcephaly, talking about six months because that is the expected evolution of the epidemic. That was the curve that we had, for example, in the case of chikungunya, first grew rapidly and after several months decreased to stabilize at a smaller number of cases.
Is it true that the treatment of the virus, except in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, is simple and limited to acetaminophen and stay a few days at rest?
There is no treatment other than symptom management: hydration, rest and acetaminophen. Our concern, again, lies in the neurological complications.
Why Colombia and Brazil are the countries most affected by the presence of zika, if the other Latin American countries have similar climatic and geographical conditions?
The zika came from the south and is coming to the Caribbean. The impact will be similar in all countries. We do have differences in the report. In Venezuela, for example, no epidemiological silence for many months.
But that should itself be a political decision of the government. As for Colombia, how long will this crisis and became permanent or not to go?
It is here to stay. After the epidemic situation will endemic fewer distributed more or less evenly throughout the year cases. This is the critical year 2016, a leap year.
Can not resist the temptation to ask whether, through its technocratic pragmatism, License believe in bad omens which supposedly allowed leap years ...
Overall I am incredulous, but this time I am very worried and so do the casual allusion.
Finally, Minister: hygiene habits serve to prevent zika and similar?
They are key. Do not leave standing water, tanks and pools brush, cover the containers, collecting useless ... All these activities are essential to prevention. Personal protection is also very important: everyone, including pregnant women, of course, should use repellent and clothing that covers most of the body. 70% of prevention depends on what you do or do not make individuals, families or communities.
In addition to infections and passenger discomfort, will there be deaths zika?
Yes. In this we must be clear: there can be deaths attributable to the Zika virus.
Zika, worry scientists
Virologist Ana Bispo, Brazil, has dedicated his laboratory in Rio de Janeiro to study the zika since last year, when they began to detect cases in their country. Bispo has become an internationally consulted due to insipiencia knowledge about this disease, which threatened half a world authority, and the other half warning their citizens to avoid traveling to regions where they play the mosquito that transmits humans. It was also the first scientist to identify the virus in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women. The next step was tracking them affected mothers and so suspicions linked almost 4,000 infants with apparent brain damage and heads lower than normal size. The zika, whose symptoms often are transient and do not usually have serious consequences, caught the attention of the experts when precisely matches between the virus, microcephaly and, more recently, the disease Guillain-Barre syndrome were found, which produces paralysis. There is a network involving more than 40 laboratories and dozens of specialists in different sciences, from genetics to neuroscience, created exclusively to investigate the organism today.
Latin America on alert
The first mass produced cases identified as Zika virus in Latin America were reported in February 2015 in Brazil, where the health system began to report strange rashes in six states (departments). In less than a year, the Pan American Health Organization confirmed the detection of zika in 20 more countries, including Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela (no official data), Panama, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other Caribbean and Central American states. The count grows and no one doubts that reach across the continent. The zika is an arbovirus of producing invertebrates such as mosquitoes, ticks and mosquitoes animals. It is similar to dengue, the chikungunya, yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis called. It was originally identified in Africa, at the end of the first half of the twentieth century, particularly in Uganda, in the forests of Zika, hence its name. Researchers found accidentally in a monkey while conducting a study on the transmission of yellow fever. Almost 60 years later there were findings of zika in Polynesia, Pacific Ocean, in 2013. 10 000 cases reported, 70 were serious: the patients developed neurological complications such as we now fear the Latin Americans.
http://www.elespectador.com/entrevi...no-critico-del-zika-sera-2016-articulo-612343
