Is the Zika paranoia totally overdone now? While the government wants to be transparent and upfront about this, are we going overboard on the scare factor?
Yes, we understand that Zika is harmful to pregnant women. Yes, it can be transmitted via sexual contact. Numbers have suddenly shot up to more than 100 but is it deadly? Nobody has died from it so far and most have had mild symptoms and recovered successfully.
Zika has already been detected since 1947 in Africa and it has been moving around the world till now. Thanks to the media, it is being hyped up as an uncontrollable epidemic. The probability of the unborn child getting microcephaly is between 1 to 13%, a 1 in 10 chance. Brazil has caught all the recent attention because of the Rio Olympics and that a significant number of its citizens had contracted it. Note that to date, 70 countries have already reported cases of Zika already.
I pity the currently pregnant women who are now being bombarded with worse case scenarios, even as their bodies are going through severe hormonal changes. This is not like SARS where the infected can die from it. Let’s be rational and just take sensible precautions.
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