BRAZIL: Carnival Goes Ahead Inspite Of Zika Virus

Millions of people across Brazil have joined the first day of the annual carnival festivities despite concerns about the outbreak of the Zika virus.

In Recife, the city most affected by the mosquito-borne disease, more than one million people in colourful costumes have been partying.
In Rio de Janeiro, huge crowds of revellers have filled the city centre to celebrate.The virus has been linked to a surge of brain malformations in newborn babies.

The health ministry and local authorities have been handing out leaflets alerting residents and tourists to the risks of Zika.
Over a million visitors are expected in Rio de Janeiro for the carnival celebrations, which end on Wednesday morning.This is the first test of whether fear of contamination by the Zika virus may scare tourists from the Olympics the city will host in August and September.

Despite warnings that the traditional Carnival clothes or lack of them would increase the spread of the Zika virus, performers and revelers taking part in Brazil's nationwide street fest have been going down the classic route.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous city and its economic capital, the second day of carnival celebrations saw a number of samba schools parade through the streets in jaw-dropping costumes covered in diamantes, feathers and not much more.

Medical experts have warned that the celebrations held all over Brazil in the coming days could become an 'explosive cocktail' that will see the mosquito-transmitted Zika spread at globally.

The annual mega-bash famed for lavish and skimpily dressed samba parades and all-night street dancing is expected to attract as many as five million people from all over the world.

Dr Sergio Cimerman, Brazil's leading virologist, warned that the combination of huge crowds of people wearing little clothing and rain gathering on rubbish-filled streets will put participants in the celebrations held all over Brazil this weekend, at high risk.

Brazilian authorities and the International Olympic Committee have pointed out that the Games will be held during the Southern Hemisphere winter, when conditions for the proliferation of the mosquito that spreads the virus will be less favourable.

Fumigation to try to eliminate the Aedes aegypti, which also carries the dengue and chikungunya viruses, are continuing in many Brazilian cities during carnival.

Belief that Zika causes microcephaly in children born to mothers infected while pregnant has prompted foreign governments to warn against traveling to much of Latin America.

The World Health Organization has declared an emergency and there are alarming, but still unconfirmed fears that the virus might also be transmittable through semen, blood and even saliva.

At the Zika epicenter, Brazil is simultaneously fighting mosquitoes and insisting that tourists face no danger at the Carnival or when they come to Rio in six months for the Summer Olympics.

Rio authorities say they are eradicating stagnant water where mosquitoes breed, fumigating Olympic stadiums, and are advising athletes and fans to wear long-sleeved clothing, close their windows and apply repellant.

Fumigators have been plying the Sambadrome, where thousands of dancers will perform during this weekend's samba school parades.
Health workers will be deployed to many of the city's more than 500 street parties, or 'blocos,' where thousands of revellers will gather to drink, dance, sweat and rub shoulders.

Some 220,000 armed forces troops will launch a big clean-up operation next week to eliminate puddles of stagnant water where the mosquitoes breed.

President Dilma Rousseff has urged all Brazilians to join the effort.
More than 20 countries in the Americas have been affected by the Zika virus outbreak. Brazil has been the worst hit country.

But at the street party in central Rio - just one of scores taking place across the city Saturday Luiz Marinho, 51, said the anti-mosquito war does not extend to less glamorous neighborhoods.

'Here in the center the mayor does everything necessary. It's perfect. There's no water around here, there's no garbage. There'll be garbage after this party, but it's asphalt and they'll just hose the place clean,' said Marinho, who works at a public hospital and was wearing a polka-dot sleeveless vest.
In the favelas, where Rio's working poor live in tightly packed streets with few public services, 'we have the real mosquito breeding sites,' he said. 'We have water lying around and we don't even have basic sanitation.'

Health officials believe as many as 100,000 people have been exposed to the Zika virus in Recife, the area which has seen the highest number of cases, although most never develop symptoms.

In the last four months, authorities have recorded around 4,000 cases in Brazil in which the mosquito-borne Zika virus may have led to microcephaly in infants.

The ailment results in an abnormally small head in newborns and is associated with various disorders including decreased brain development.
The rapid spread of Zika is discouraging many Americans from traveling to Latin America and the Caribbean, with 41 percent of those aware of the disease saying they are less likely to take such a trip.

'I am actively trying to get pregnant with my husband, so I am a little bit concerned,' said Erica, a respondent who said she was bitten by a mosquito during a January trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Zika has been reported.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has advised pregnant women to avoid travel to areas with an active outbreak of Zika, and the World Health Organization has declared an international emergency over the disease.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Zika virus outbreak is likely to spread throughout nearly all the Americas.