Doctors are struggling to understand the mosquito-borne virus that causes brain damage in unborn children,while pregnant women in the slums cannot afford the insect repellent that may prevent it. This is now a global health threatThe call that would change Celina Maria Turchi Martelli’s life came out of the blue one day last September. It was a friend from the ministry of health in central Brazil. Turchi is well known there; it was where she grew up and spent most of her career as a doctor in infectious diseases and then epidemiology before moving 10 years ago to Recife, more than a thousand miles absent in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco. The ministry was hearing reports of surprising numbers of babies born in Recife with small heads – a condition called microcephaly. Would Turchi mind taking a gape?Happy to encourage, and Turchi set off. What she found was devastating.
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Source: theguardian.com