Skip to footer

Brazil to fund development of vaccine for Zika virus

Brazil is experiencing the largest known outbreak of Zika. The virus, which is spread through mosquito bites, has been linked to a recent surge in birth defects.

|
Felipe Dana/AP
Dejailson Arruda holds his daughter Luiza at their house in Santa Cruz do Capibaribe, Pernambuco state, Brazil. More than 2,700 babies have been born in Brazil with microcephaly this year, up from fewer than 150 in 2014.
  • By Associated Press

| Sao Paulo

The Brazilian government announced it will direct funds to a biomedical research center to help develop a vaccine against a virus linked to brain damage in babies.

Health Minister Marcelo Castro said Friday that the goal is for the Sao Paulo-based Butantan Institute to develop "in record time" a vaccine for Zika, which is spread through mosquito bites.

Institute director Jorge Kalil said that is expected take 3 to 5 years.

Brazil is currently experiencing the largest known outbreak of Zika. The virus has been linked to a recent surge in birth defects including microcephaly, a rare condition in which newborns have smaller than normal heads and their brains do not develop properly.

The Health Ministry says 3,530 babies have been born with microcephaly in the country since October. Fewer than 150 such cases were seen in all of 2014.

Most have been concentrated in Brazil's poor northeast, though cases in Rio de Janeiro and other big cities have also been on the rise, prompting people to stock up on mosquito repellent.

Some women of means have left the country to spend their pregnancies in the United States or Europe to avoid infection.

The Zika virus is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can also carry dengue and chikungunya.

"Today there is only one way to fight the Zika virus, which is to destroy the mosquito's breeding grounds," Mr. Castro said. "The final victory against the virus will only come when we develop a vaccine against that disease."

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an alert Friday advising pregnant women to avoid traveling to Brazil and several other countries in the Americas where Zika outbreaks have occurred.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Brazil to fund development of vaccine for Zika virus
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2016/0116/Brazil-to-fund-development-of-vaccine-for-Zika-virus
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe