As the Trinidad-based Caribbean Regional Public Health Agency (CARPHA) prepares to present a policy brief on the Zika virus to regional leaders during their Feb. 16-17 meeting in Belize, Toronto’s Caribbean Diaspora is being galvanized to make a difference by raising funds via GoFundMe.
The Camera is tackling Zika head-on to give health authorities in The Islands a fighting chance to beat this growing threat for the sake of unborn children, expectant mothers and all those suffering there as a result.
The Camera is asking our valued readers to support a special campaign to raise funds for that fight and to help provide medical expertise to the various governments that make up the Caribbean region.
Please visit gofundme.com/xtmy5drn to donate and share the link with as many people as you can.
While some Caribbean countries may be well placed to fight this threat, others are sparsely populated and rely heavily on tourism to fill their government coffers, a source of funds that could come to a sudden halt, adding to the financial onus of dealing with Zika.
The Camera’s decision to pitch in comes after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Zika an International emergency, calling the mosquito-borne virus that’s rampaging through South and Central America and the Caribbean an “extraordinary event.”
The agency convened a closed-door emergency meeting of independent experts to assess the outbreak after noting a suspicious link between Zika’s arrival in Brazil last year and a surge in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads.
Dr. Kamran Khan at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto has noted in a research letter published in The Lancet that “The summer Olympic Games in Brazil in August heighten the need for awareness of this emerging virus.”
Khan, associate professor, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, U of T. pointed out there is no vaccine or antiviral therapy yet available. Possible interventions include personal protection (i.e. insect repellent); daytime avoidance of mosquito bites, especially by pregnant woman until more is known about the association between Zika virus infection and microcephaly and community-level mosquito surveillance and control measures.
The virus is not expected to be carried by mosquitoes in Canada as we lack the warm-weather species that do carry it.
Zika is generally a mild illness, spread by a day-biting mosquito. However, there is a worrisome but as yet unproven association of infected mothers in Brazil giving birth to babies with small heads and underdeveloped brains, Khan, the practising infectious disease physician at St. Michael’s Hospital said.
There has been a 20-fold increase in the number of babies born with this condition since Zika first appeared in Brazil in May 2015.
Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a tropical infectious disease specialist at Toronto General Hospital who contributed to the study said, “Things don’t happen in isolation anymore. Infections from the farthest corners of the world can quickly arrive on our doorstep.”
The WHO announcement enables emergency funding for research and prevention measures across the globe. It should empower a more global reaction to the outbreak.
WHO is not calling for trade or travel restrictions. Instead the declaration is focused on spurring collaborative research and awareness of the dangers of the Zika virus.
Zika re-emerged after lying mostly dormant since the late 1940’s and early ‘50’s. It is a health emergency today because doctors are connecting the mosquito transmitted virus to microcephaly.
Most of the population is not at risk of long-term complications. Only one fifth with the infection will have minor symptoms (rash, joint pain, pink eyes, fever), which will resolve on their own.