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Brazil Will Deploy Troops to Spread Awareness of Zika Virus
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s government has decided to deploy 220,000 troops for a day next month to spread awareness about the Zika virus, which has been linked to severe birth defects in thousands of infants.
The move came as Brazil’s top health official acknowledged that the country was “badly losing the battle” against mosquito-borne diseases like Zika.
Marcelo Castro, the country’s health minister, disclosed the troop mobilization in an interview with the newspaper O Globo, and said he expected it to occur on Feb. 13. A spokeswoman for the Health Ministry later clarified that the troop deployment was expected to last only a day, largely involving personnel from different branches of the armed forces going door-to-door handing out pamphlets.
The mobilization focuses scrutiny on President Dilma Rousseff’s response to Zika, which arrived in Brazil recently and is rapidly spreading to other parts of Latin America. More than 3,800 infants in Brazil have recently been found to have microcephaly, a previously rare condition linked to Zika in which babies are born with brain damage and abnormally small heads.
Brazil has also been grappling with a sharp increase in cases of dengue fever, transmitted by the same mosquito that spreads Zika, with 863 people dying from dengue in 2015.
Mr. Castro came under criticism for his unusually frank assessment of Brazil’s losing struggle against virus-transmitting mosquitoes, which he called the country’s “No. 1 enemy.” Brazil has already been mobilizing much smaller numbers of troops in parts of the country to accompany health officials in anti-mosquito education campaigns.
Infectious disease specialists in Brazil welcomed the announcement about the troops. But they also emphasized the importance of long-term anti-mosquito programs. The country’s public health system is struggling with the surge in cases of microcephaly and of Guillain-Barré syndrome, which some researchers warn is also linked to Zika and can leave patients almost paralyzed for weeks.
“Putting more troops on the streets is worth trying, and I hope it has a positive impact,” said Celso Granato, an infectious disease specialist at the Federal University of São Paulo. “But this is something that should have been done years ago.”
Brazil’s government has announced bold moves before to deal with Zika, only for some of them to unravel. Mr. Castro said in December that the Health Ministry would form a venture with a pharmaceutical laboratory operated by the Brazilian Army to produce mosquito repellent and distribute it to pregnant women around the country. But the army said just a day later that it would not be able to produce repellent on such a scale.
Reacting to the troop announcement, some Brazilians questioned why the government was waiting until after the Carnival holiday to step up the anti-mosquito campaign. Epidemiologists warn that Carnival could serve as a catalyst for spreading Zika as tourists gather in cities during the peak breeding season for mosquitoes. Others pondered the wisdom of deploying so many troops for a single day.
“I think it’s a bit Hollywood, to show they’re doing something, sound an alarm,” said Rosana Rodrigues, 50, a tour guide in Rio de Janeiro. “Look, it’s all about quality, not quantity.”
Anna Jean Kaiser contributed reporting.
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