El Salvador Urges Against Pregnancies Until 2018 as Zika Virus Spreads

[sweat209]

@Baker

So, women shouldn’t get pregnant but they aren’t allowed to use physical means of birth control. That sounds idiotic.

Birth control is illegal there.

Only way is to go to the US spend day or so there than go back.

[sweat209]

@even_sven

There is still a lot to learn before a real strategy can be developed. A vaccine may be possible. Wide scale mosquito control may be an option. Pinpointing what stage of fetal development is most dangerous may help.

We have some experience with mosquito borne illnesses, so we aren’t starting from scratch. But this is a public health disaster. The affected regions are huge, and until we understand what changed we aren’t going to be able to predict how much further it could spread.

That is the thing it may not go away. They think and hope that in two years it will go away and it may not.

[Moonlitherial]

@sweat209

That is the thing it may not go away. They think and hope that in two years it will go away and it may not.

Or that they’ll be able to find a vaccine or treatment.

[even_sven]

@sweat209

That is the thing it may not go away. They think and hope that in two years it will go away and it may not.

Of course it won’t magically go away.

But there are public health measures that are at least somewhat effective against mosquito-borne illnesses, particularly when those measures are well funded. I’m sitting in a former malaria zone as we speak.

A vaccine may also be in the realm of possibility.

Barring that, at the very least we may be able to say “If you live in region A, B and C, be really, really serious with the mosquito nets and insect repellent during weeks X, Y and Z of pregnancy” and “if you think you may have been exposed, here is where to go for testing and other support.”

[Eva_Luna]

@sweat209

How is that different than other countries that are anti-abortion?

Unless it is a rape or the woman’s life is at risk it is illegal.

The last two are a big deal. In El Salvador the law goes so far as to prohibit terminating ectopic pregnanciesuntil there is proof that the pregnancy is not viable. An ectopic pregnancy is not going to lead to a living baby, period, so all that accomplishes is risking the life of the pregnant woman. Other kinds of pregnancies that will not lead to a living baby also cannot be aborted on pain of long prison terms for all involved.

[Nava]

@Alley_Dweller

It seems that about 51% of El Salvador is Roman Catholic.

I bet the bishops are going to throw a fit over this.

Why? The RCC isn’t quiverfull… Salvadoran laws are actually behind the times with regards to RCC recomendations regarding birth control.

[AK84]

@Dr.Woo

The tropics: where scary diseases are more prevalent and humans less able to cope with them.

Quite the contarary. Humans bodies are designed for the tropics, which is where we evolved.

[MrDibble]

@AK84

Humans bodies are designed for the tropics, which is where we evolved.

Which is why there are more tropical diseases - the disease organisms are likewise designed for those same tropical humans…

[Broomstick]

@Eva_Luna

The last two are a big deal. In El Salvador the law goes so far as to prohibit terminating ectopic pregnanciesuntil there is proof that the pregnancy is not viable. An ectopic pregnancy is not going to lead to a living baby, period, so all that accomplishes is risking the life of the pregnant woman.

Actually… there have been a very few rare instances of both mother and child surviving an ectopic pregnancy. Very rarely, and only with modern medicine. Which, in this case, is just enough of a “maybe” to deny women treatment for a condition that statistically speaking is very likely to kill them without treatment.

[Hector_St_Clare]

@Baker

Also, what about contraception laws? Surely they won’t rely on the rhythm method. You know what they call women who do that?

Salvadoran women tend to rely on long-acting injectable contraception, and also on sterilization. (25% of women under 30 are sterilized, or were as of ten years ago, it’s probably higher now). These have been very effective at lowering the fertility rate- El Salvador currently has a lower total fertility rate than the United States.

The modern Catholic Church promotes various forms of natural family planning (symptothermal and maybe also the new method that tests hormone levels in urine) which are much more effective than the rhythm method. I think the last study I saw on state of the art NFP was from Germany and found an efficacy lower than the pill, higher than the condom. But that’s in any case irrelevant since El Salvador is one of the least Catholic countries in Latin America and most women there use contraception anyway.

[Machine_Elf]

@Dewey_Finn

That seems unlikely. From Wikipedia, “In humans, it causes a mild illness known as Zika fever, Zika, or Zika disease, which since the 1950s has been known to occur within a narrow equatorial belt from Africa to Asia.”

So what’s going on? Why is Zika virus fever suddenly increasing in prevalence/range?

[The_Devil_s_Grandmother]

@Miller

“Mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

[Mama_Zappa]

@AK84

Quite the contarary. Humans bodies are designed for the tropics, which is where we evolved.

The point was, I think, that tropical countries by and large have less advanced healthcare than Europe, North America, much of Asia… So when a new tropical disease crops up or becomes more prevalent, they can’t cope.

@sweat209

This Zika virus could spread all over the world.

@Dewey Finn

That seems unlikely. From Wikipedia, "In humans, it causes a mild illness known as Zika fever, Zika, or Zika disease, which since the 1950s has been known to occur within a narrow equatorial belt from Africa to Asia.

@Machine Elf

So what’s going on? Why is Zika virus fever suddenly increasing in prevalence/range?

Global warming, for one thing.

I suspect it’s also related to the increased rate of global travel in the past few decades - greater chance of someone in an affected area going someplace else and spreading the illness, e.g. SARS. While something that relies mainly on mosquitoes to spread would be less likely to increase because of that, it does provide some opportunities - and unlike malaria, zika can spread person to person in at least some cases without the assistance of a mosquito.

[eclectic_wench]

What’s the story on immunity to the Zika virus? If you’ve already had it, can you go off and get pregnant, safe in the knowledge that you can’t get it again? (And is there a test that can confirm whether you’ve actually had Zika or just something like it?) Or is it one of those things that you can get again and again?

Basically, when they say not to get pregnant till 2018, do they mean all women or just those who haven’t had the Zika virus yet?

[Machine_Elf]

@Mama_Zappa

Global warming, for one thing.

I suspect it’s also related to the increased rate of global travel in the past few decades - greater chance of someone in an affected area going someplace else and spreading the illness, e.g. SARS. While something that relies mainly on mosquitoes to spread would be less likely to increase because of that, it does provide some opportunities - and unlike malaria, zika can spread person to person in at least some cases without the assistance of a mosquito.

Maybe, but we’ve heard nothing at all until maybe a couple of weeks ago, and suddenly El Salvador is telling its women not to get pregnant for the next couple of years, and women in the US are being diagnosed with ZV fever. Is this the news hounds catching a scent and running with it, or did things suddenly go crazy in the past month, like an Ebola outbreak?

[Rysto]

@Machine_Elf

So what’s going on? Why is Zika virus fever suddenly increasing in prevalence/range?

The wikipedia article on Zika indicates that it only reached the Americas within the past year. My WAG would be that it is now spreading in a huge population that has never developed an immunity to the disease, so it is spreading very quickly.

Also, it sounds like its effects on the majority of people is quite mild. The big concern now is its effect on fetal development. So I would guess that in the areas in which the Zika virus is endemic, the vast majority of females contract the disease and develop an immunity before they reach childbearing age. Now that the virus is spreading in a lot of woman of child-bearing age, the link with microcephaly is becoming clearer and it’s a much bigger concern than it was before.