Puerto Rico officials struggle to translate Zika virus fears into action

Puerto Rico & Zika … Mosquitoes aren’t anything new to the Island. Measures? Which ones? #NoToNALED … The

Repeating Islands

A quarter of the population may have the disease by the end of mosquito season, but efforts to control it have been thwarted by apathy and misinformation, Jessica Glenza reports for London’s Guardian.

Every time it rains in San Juan, Dr Brenda Rivera-García walks around her home emptying containers of standing water, probably wearing long sleeves, and almost certainly wearing mosquito repellent. Rivera-García is the state epidemiologist in Puerto Rico, a woman tasked with tracking every single Zika-infected pregnant woman in the US territory.

Less than two weeks after the US health and human services administrationdeclared the spread of Zika on the island an epidemic, Rivera-García said it’s not frustration or anger that overtakes her when she adds a new woman’s name to a list of roughly 700 confirmed to be infected with the disease.

It’s sadness.

“Every time I have to add a pregnant woman…

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