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http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35459797

Zika virus: WHO declares global emergency

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Quote
Zika poses a global public health emergency requiring an urgent, united response, says the World Health Organization.
Experts are worried that the virus is spreading far and fast, with devastating consequences. The infection has been linked to thousands of babies being born with underdeveloped brains. The WHO alert puts Zika in the same category of international concern as Ebola. It means research and aid will be fast-tracked to tackle the infection. WHO director general, Margaret Chan called Zika an "extraordinary event" that needed a coordinated response.

"I am now declaring that the recent cluster of microcephaly and other neurological abnormalities reported in Latin America following a similar cluster in French Polynesia in 2014 constitutes a public health emergency of international concern." She said the priorities were to protect pregnant women and their babies from harm and to control the mosquitoes that are spreading the virus.
She advised pregnant women: to consider delaying travel to areas affected by Zika seek advice from their physician if they are living in areas affected by Zika, as well as protect themselves against mosquito bites by wearing repellent Dr Chan justified declaring an emergency even amid uncertainties about the disease, saying now was not the time to wait. The WHO faced heavy criticism for waiting too long to declare the Ebola outbreak a public emergency.

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Currently, there is no vaccine or medication to stop Zika. The only way to avoid catching it is to avoid getting bitten by the Aedes mosquitoes that transmit the infection.The WHO has already warned that Zika is likely to "spread explosively" across nearly all of the Americas. More than 20 countries, including Brazil, are reporting cases. Most infections are mild and cause few or no symptoms, although there have been some reported cases of a rare paralysis disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome. The bigger health threat though is believed to be in pregnancy, to the unborn child. There have been around 4,000 reported cases of microcephaly - babies born with small brains - in Brazil alone since October. Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "There is a long road ahead. As with Ebola, Zika has once again exposed the world's vulnerability to emerging infectious diseases and the devastation they can unleash. Alongside the emergency response that Zika necessitates, we must put in place the permanent reforms, health systems strengthening and proactive research agenda that are needed to make the global health system more resilient to the threat of future pandemics."
Stopping Zika

 I know this is horribly cruel and shallow but......them earrings ain't gonna do that lil thing a damn bit a good.

We may have to nuke everything below the equator....

it might sound horrible to say, but whenever I see reports like this, about these deadly killer world ending viruses, I can't help but think how Ra's al Ghul would put it, that the world is so overpopulated by human beings now, its bound to happen, and maybe nature can do some good in thinning the herd a bit.

Further proof that god loves us.

@munch: Love your sig. I've incorporated those move into my exercise routine. :biggrin:

I give up. Who declares global emergency?
<endscript.troll>

Time to bring back DDT or DDT the Next Generation.

I gotta be honest here, this doesn't seem like as big a deal to me as Ebola was. Its bad, but not Ebola bad.

Quote from: Munch on February 01, 2016, 03:03:42 PM
it might sound horrible to say, but whenever I see reports like this, about these deadly killer world ending viruses

Zika isn't a deadly world-ending virus: it's main two observed effects as of yet are inducing microcephaly in unborn children and in extremely rare cases, Guillainâ€"Barré Syndrome. Guillainâ€"Barré Syndrome is a rare side effect of many infections. That being said, many women have tested positive for it and gone on to birth normal babies. We've known about Zika since the 1960s and know that a lot of people have asymptomatic infections. In symptomatic infections in healthy, non-pregant individuals, at most you're at risk of a low-grade fever, rash, and joint pain. There's just a lot we don't know, and what we don't know is being replaced with hysteria and conspiracy theories.

It's horrible for the parents of children affected by this virus. However, a virus which might make people think twice about procreating in an overpopulated world might not be a bad thing in some respects, like Munch said.

Now, if someone could engineer a virus which makes religious fundamentalists and other dumbasses sterile, then I think we could be onto a winner.  :97:

Quote from: Youssuf Ramadan on February 01, 2016, 05:48:29 PM
It's horrible for the parents of children affected by this virus. However, a virus which might make people think twice about procreating in an overpopulated world might not be a bad thing in some respects, like Munch said.

No, it just makes a complicated and poorly understood problem worse. The government's temporary solution is to tell women to postpone pregnancy... sorry, but hahahahahahahahaha.

We're talking about countries where it's a crime to get an abortion but it's not a crime for a man to force his wife to have sex. Countries where birth control access and education are extremely low, and rates of poverty and malnutrition are extremely high. If people don't stop having babies even when they can't afford to feed or clothe them, they aren't going to stop having them because of a mosquito-borne virus either.

There have been increases in reports of maternal deaths from women trying to induce abortions because of this. It doesn't solve anything, because the solution in these primarily Catholic countries is just "pray harder."

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/experts-christian-doctrine-is-causing-the-zika-virus-outbreak-to-explode/

Quote from: TomFoolery on February 01, 2016, 05:57:44 PM
No, it just makes a complicated and poorly understood problem worse. The government's temporary solution is to tell women to postpone pregnancy... sorry, but hahahahahahahahaha.

We're talking about countries where it's a crime to get an abortion but it's not a crime for a man to force his wife to have sex. Countries where birth control access and education are extremely low, and rates of poverty and malnutrition are extremely high. If people don't stop having babies even when they can't afford to feed or clothe them, they aren't going to stop having them because of a mosquito-borne virus either.

There have been increases in reports of maternal deaths from women trying to induce abortions because of this. It doesn't solve anything, because the solution in these primarily Catholic countries is just "pray harder."

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/experts-christian-doctrine-is-causing-the-zika-virus-outbreak-to-explode/

Sadly, you're probably right.....  :sad:

Alternatively.....

(http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb366/magicrob99/keep-calm-and-try-anal1_zpscnshtufn.jpg) (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/magicrob99/media/keep-calm-and-try-anal1_zpscnshtufn.jpg.html)

:97:

Quote from: kilodelta on February 01, 2016, 03:53:00 PM
I give up. Who declares global emergency?
<endscript.troll>

Time to bring back DDT or DDT the Next Generation.

DDT has widespread resistance. We have permethrin which is very effective for mosquito control and repellency. The problem is not chemistry, it's consistent delivery.

Quote from: Youssuf Ramadan on February 01, 2016, 06:12:48 PM
Alternatively.....

(http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb366/magicrob99/keep-calm-and-try-anal1_zpscnshtufn.jpg) (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/magicrob99/media/keep-calm-and-try-anal1_zpscnshtufn.jpg.html)

:97:

If that is you and your woman I would say you are one lucky guy.

Quote from: aitm on February 01, 2016, 02:36:20 PM
We may have to nuke everything below the equator....

But I like my feet and legs ;-)

This from Rawstory:

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/experts-christian-doctrine-is-causing-the-zika-virus-outbreak-to-explode/

QuoteExperts say that the Zika virus outbreak, which has been linked to birth defects, is exploding in part because Christian doctrine against contraception and abortion.

World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan warned last week that the Zika virus “is now spreading explosively” throughout the Americas. The mosquito-borne virus corresponds to a “steep increase in the birth of babies with abnormally small heads and in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome,” Chan said.

Brazil alone has already seen 4,000 cases of babies born with microcephaly to mothers infected with the Zika virus. According to the CDC, the virus can also be “transmitted from a pregnant mother to her baby during pregnancy or around the time of birth.”

Experts agree that contraception and abortion are two of the best tools for combating the impact of the Zika virus outbreak, but Christian doctrine either forbids or discourages both in many cases.

Quartz reported that abortion is completely banned in five Latin American countries, and only 52 percent of women in the region have access to birth control, which makes recommendations to delay pregnancy unrealistic.

David Vanderpool, a Tennessee missionary doctor working Haiti, told NPR over the weekend that Christian doctrine complicated responding to the outbreak.

“People assume that women in Haiti, you know, would have the same access to birth control that American women would, and it’s just not true,” he explained. “The Haitian woman may not have a choice in sex. The sex may not be consensual at all. And so just enjoining people not to have babies is probably not going to be very effective.”

“It’s easy to wax philosophical when we’re in an air-conditioned building in the United States surrounded by all the food and water that we need,” he continued. “We have so many examples of women who had to prostitute themselves because their children were starving to death. Well, you know, that’s not a philosophically discussed question, but that is a real question; that’s a reality.”

Although the Catholic Church forbids contraception, Vanderpool said that his organization had found that opposing birth control was not realistic in developing countries.

“In fact, we give out contraception,” he said. “Many of our ladies will be pregnant 16 times in their life. About half of those pregnancies, the children will survive until age 5. We see that with each pregnancy, they lose about 20 percent of their body weight, and the toll is extreme.”

But Vanderpool said that he discouraged abortions regardless of the consequences.

“You know, in my opinion, abortion is not a good answer. I think that our answer’s going to lie in proper birth control and adequate vaccines,” he insisted to NPR. “We could have come up with a cure many, many years ago so that we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

Aid groups have warned of a rise in deaths from unsafe abortions due to a lack of access.

Katja Iversen, chief executive of the Women Deliver organization, called it “a cheap shot for governments to say postpone your next pregnancy if you don’t make contraception and access to safe abortion readily available.”

“It is interesting to see how the focus is on the big epidemic, but even though women are carrying the burden, they are still an asterisk,” Iversen said.

If any situation ever made the case for contraception, abortion and the stupidity of the Christian/Catholic stance on both, this does. Maybe pictures of microcephalic babies in front of abortion clinics might wake the pro lifers up, but probably not.

This is scary.

(http://i.imgur.com/Jy2Gyki.jpg)

Quote from: stromboli on February 01, 2016, 07:59:02 PM
This is scary.

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I know right, when we've already seen the effects of the virus for the last 70 years.

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That newspaper editorial comment I posted shows just how idiotic the religious mindset is. so the good people of Haiti and South America put their trust in god and wind up with a generation populated with microcephalic mental midgets that require extraordinary care and serve little if any functional purpose in society. If this isn't a banner example of the stupidity of religion, I can't think of a better one.