Kali­fa Clyne

There needs to be a con­ver­sa­tion about a woman's right to an abor­tion con­sid­er­ing the po­ten­tial im­pli­ca­tions of the Zi­ka virus en­ter­ing T&T.

This is the opin­ion of gy­nae­col­o­gist Dr Sherene Kalloo, who spoke dur­ing an in­ter­view on the im­pli­ca­tions of the Zi­ka virus on preg­nant women.

In Brazil, al­most 4,000 ba­bies were born with a birth de­fect, mi­cro­cephaly, in 2015, com­pared to 150 the pre­vi­ous year.

Health of­fi­cials and re­search in the coun­try have de­ter­mined that the birth de­fect is as­so­ci­at­ed with the Zi­ka virus, which is trans­mit­ted by the Aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to that is al­so the in­sect vec­tor for dengue and chikun­gun­ya, and ac­cord­ing to doc­tors, the symp­toms are very sim­i­lar.

There is no vac­cine on the mar­ket for the Zi­ka virus.

Gov­ern­ments across the re­gion, from Colom­bia to Ja­maica, have be­gun ad­vis­ing women to de­lay preg­nan­cy un­til the virus has been con­trolled.

This week Bar­ba­dos con­firmed three cas­es of the Zi­ka virus in the coun­try.

Symp­toms last from four to sev­en days and in­clude fever, con­junc­tivi­tis, headaches, mus­cle and joint pain, weak­ness, a red rash, and vom­it­ing and eye­ball pain.

Oth­er symp­toms are swelling of the low­er limbs, di­ar­rhoea and ab­dom­i­nal pain. The virus is typ­i­cal­ly non-fa­tal. The biggest threat it pos­es is to preg­nant women.

Kalloo, a promi­nent doc­tor, says the re­search has made an as­so­ci­a­tion with first trimester preg­nan­cies, the Zi­ka virus and mi­cro­cephaly.

"The ad­vice is if you are plan­ning to get preg­nant or if you are preg­nant you should not trav­el to the coun­try where Zi­ka is con­firmed.

"I think it is wise to ed­u­cate our peo­ple that even though the virus does not kill adults, they should avoid long-term com­pli­ca­tions in an ill ba­by and avoid get­ting the virus in the first trimester. Maybe this can be done by putting off or de­lay­ing preg­nan­cy."

Kalloo said the Car­ni­val sea­son usu­al­ly saw an in­crease in preg­nan­cy and not­ed the in­flux of for­eign­ers com­ing from coun­tries where the virus ex­ists.

"The main thing is that we don't want ba­bies who nine months down the road will be a bur­den to moth­ers, fam­i­lies, and so­ci­ety and to them­selves lat­er on in life.

"The best ad­vice is to avoid preg­nan­cy un­til the virus is con­trolled be­cause we do have the Aedes ae­gyp­ti abun­dant in this coun­try.

"If it is that a pa­tient is known to be ex­posed to the Zi­ka virus in preg­nan­cy and vis­its a doc­tor, there is no treat­ment or vac­cine or pre­ven­tion once the virus is on board.

"She should be screened thor­ough­ly for signs of mi­cro­cephaly and I per­son­al­ly feel that a woman should be giv­en an op­tion as to whether to ter­mi­nate a preg­nan­cy or not.

"She needs to be told the risk be­cause she has to deal with it."

Kalloo said women should be al­lowed to make the de­ci­sion "keep­ing in mind abor­tions are not le­gal in the coun­try."

An abor­tion can be legal­ly per­formed in T&T, but on­ly if the moth­er's life is at risk. In such a case, the woman would need the con­sent of two con­sul­tants.

While Kalloo's con­cerns lie with the health of moth­ers and their new-born in­fants, oth­er coun­tries are al­ready ad­vis­ing on pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures.

Last week, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said the coun­try need­ed to pre­vent the vec­tor from spread­ing the virus.

He said there was a need to elim­i­nate breed­ing sites. Oth­er sug­ges­tions re­gion­al­ly in­clude us­ing mos­qui­to bed nets which can al­so be treat­ed with in­sec­ti­cide, wear­ing cloth­ing that does not ex­pose the skin and the use of wire mesh screens for win­dows and doors.

An of­fi­cial at the In­sect Vec­tor Con­trol Di­vi­sion, in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said the di­vi­sion was on the alert and ac­tive­ly work­ing to pre­vent the virus from en­ter­ing the coun­try.

"We have been look­ing at dif­fer­ent meth­ods to con­trol the spread of mos­qui­to-borne virus­es.

"We have been spray­ing as usu­al and em­ploy dif­fer­ent mea­sures at the ports as well. We do in­spec­tions and treat­ments at least once every week. The main thing is to pre­vent them from en­ter­ing.

"Once it gets in then it be­comes dif­fi­cult," said the source at the di­vi­sion.

The di­vi­sion has start­ed us­ing two new meth­ods of con­trol­ling the mos­qui­to pop­u­la­tion this month–a chem­i­cal agent and a bi­o­log­i­cal method.

ABOUT MI­CRO­CEPHALY

Mi­cro­cephaly is a rare neu­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tion in which an in­fant's head is sig­nif­i­cant­ly small­er than the heads of oth­er chil­dren of the same age and sex. Some­times de­tect­ed at birth, mi­cro­cephaly usu­al­ly is the re­sult of the brain de­vel­op­ing ab­nor­mal­ly in the womb or not grow­ing as it should af­ter birth.