Regina de Lima and Tainara Lourenco became pregnant at a scary moment — the dawn of an extraordinary Zika outbreak, as authorities came to suspect that the virus was causing an alarming spike in a rare birth defect called microcephaly. Both have reason to fear for the health of their unborn offspring.
But that is where the similarities end.
Lima is well-off, and took advantage of the options of affluence.
Lourenco lives in a slum. She has no options, except to hope for the best.
When Lima learned she was pregnant, her initial, vertiginous rush of happiness was almost immediately smothered by dread.
Lima and her husband had been trying to start a family but decided to put the project on hold in late November, after the Brazilian government announced a possible link between mosquito-borne Zika and microcephaly, in which infants are born with unusually small heads and can sometimes suffer mental retardation or a host of serious health and developmental problems.
The connection between Zika and microcephaly is not yet understood, but the U.S. Centers for
But for Lima, an audiovisual producer from Rio de Janeiro, it was too late. She was already pregnant, and her first trimester — thought to be when the fetus is most susceptible to Zika — would coincide with Rio's summer mosquito season.
"The first weeks were terrifying," said Lima. "I cried and cried."
She was haunted by fears she may have already had Zika without knowing it — the illness can cause a fever and red splotches on the skin, but is asymptomatic in most cases — and that her baby would develop microcephaly, which ultrasounds only pick up starting in the seventh month.
So Lima did what growing numbers of wealthy Brazilian women are doing: She requested an extended vacation from work, packed her bags and left for Europe. She plans to stay at least through the end of the dicey first trimester.
"I am in a sort of exile — I could be at home with my husband, seeing my own doctors, but instead I'm here in Europe with a suitcase," Lima said in a telephone interview from London, quickly adding that she wasn't complaining. "I am lucky to have options, to be able to make decisions. Most women in my situation don't have that luxury. They're completely at the mercy of fate."
Indeed, although she's living on a shoestring — crashing with friends and moving weekly so as not to overstay her welcome — Lima's peace of mind comes with a price tag that would be unthinkable for the vast majority of women in this most socially stratified of countries.
Her airline ticket alone cost several times the monthly minimum wage of just over $200, and with Brazil's currency at historic lows amid an economic recession, even everyday expenses in Europe have become exorbitant by Brazilian standards.
Unemployed and five months pregnant, 21-year-old Lourenco lives in a slum at the epicenter of Brazil's tandem Zika and microcephaly outbreaks, the state of Pernambuco in Brazil's impoverished and underdeveloped northeast.
Her shack is cobbled together from bits of wood and perches on stilts over a giant puddle of fetid water below. To eke out a living for herself and her 2-year-old daughter, Lourenco ventures into a nearby swamp to hunt for crustaceans she hawks for $2.50 a kilogram.
"I think I got Zika or some other disease not long ago," she said. "What can we do? Just hope that it doesn't affect the baby."
Zika is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is well-adapted to humans, thrives in people's homes and can breed in even a bottle cap's-worth of stagnant water — not to mention the pools of rain water that lurk in just about every nook and cranny during the muggy summer rain season. While anyone can be bitten by Aedes, public health experts agree that the poor are more vulnerable because they often lack amenities that help diminish the risk, such as air conditioning and window screens.
The only precautionary measure Lourenco could possibly take, long-sleeve clothing, is unworkable in the unrelenting equatorial heat.
Like many of the estimated 400,000 women currently pregnant in Brazil, she can't afford mosquito repellent. Microcephaly fears have sparked a run on repellents, emptying out the stock in many pharmacies in hard-hit areas; where it's still available — often fishing supply stores — it now often costs several times the normal price.
The government has pledged to start providing repellent to low-income women and promises to deploy some 220,000 members of the Armed Forces to help eliminate Aedes' breeding places as part of President Dilma Rousseff's declared war against the insect. But the measures are too little, too late for women whose worries about microcephaly have transformed their pregnancies into a period of unending anguish.
In the Central American nation of El Salvador, where authorities have urged women to put off pregnancy for two years, Guadalupe Urquilla is struggling to take fate into her own hands.
She's traded her dresses for long pants and closed shoes, scrubs out the family's concrete water tank every three days, and writes San Salvador city officials, demanding that they fumigate the debris-strewn public housing complex where she lives with her husband and 2-year-old daughter.
Urquilla said her husband is believed to have had Zika last fall and her daughter had dengue.
"We're really scared," said Urquilla, who's in her 13th week of pregnancy. "Imagine my baby does not get Zika, but imagine how stressed out it will be when it comes out. The whole pregnancy we're stressed out about mosquitoes. ... It's a huge paranoia."
Lourenco, though, is more fatalistic.
"If you have to get sick you will get sick," she said. "It's everywhere."
(AP)
In this Jan. 29, 2016 photo, stilt houses sit atop a polluted body of
water at a slum at the epicenter of Brazil’s tandem Zika and
microcephaly outbreaks, in Recife. Zika is spread by the Aedes aegypti
mosquito and anyone can be bitten by the insect, public health experts
agree that the poor are more vulnerable because they often lack
amenities that help diminish the risk, such as air conditioning and
window screens.
In this Jan. 28, 2016 photo, a city worker fumigates a classroom in a
mosquito eradication effort to battle the insect blamed for spreading a
virus suspected of causing birth defects, in Santa Tecla, El Salvador.
While anyone can be bitten by the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits
Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever, public health experts agree
that the poor are more vulnerable because they often lack amenities that
help diminish the risk, such as air conditioning and window screens.
In this Jan. 29, 2016 photo, women wait their turn for their pre-natal
exams at the National Hospital for Women in San Salvador, El Salvador.
In the Central American nation authorities have urged women to put off
pregnancy for two years after it was reported that there may be a
possible link between mosquito-borne Zika and microcephaly, in which
infants are born with unusually small heads and can sometimes suffer
mental retardation or a host of serious health and developmental
problems.
In this Jan. 29, 2016 photo, Carmen Cruz, 31, waits to have her prenatal
exam at the National Hospital for Women in San Salvador, El Salvador.
Latin American governments are preparing as Zika, mosquito-borne
illness, spreads through the continent. In the Central American nation
authorities have urged women to put off pregnancy for two years,
In this Jan. 29, 2016 photo, Guadalupe Urquilla, who's pregnant, looks
at her daughter Alejandra, 2, in their home in San Salvador, El
Salvador. As the Zika virus spreads through the hemisphere, authorities
in El Salvador have urged women to put off pregnancy for two years. In
the meantime, Urquilla has traded her dresses for long pants and closed
shoes, scrubs out the family's concrete water tank every three days, and
writes her city officials ceaselessly, demanding that they fumigate the
trash- and debris-strewn public housing complex where she lives with
her husband and daughter.
In this Jan. 29, 2016 photo, Guadalupe Urquilla, who is pregnant, gives
her daughter Alejandra, 2, a mosquito zapper in their home in San
Salvador, El Salvador. As the Zika virus spreads through the hemisphere,
authorities in El Salvador have urged women to put off pregnancy for
two years. In the meantime, Urquilla has traded her dresses for long
pants and closed shoes, scrubs out the familyís concrete water tank
every three days, and writes San Salvador city officials ceaselessly,
demanding that they fumigate the trash- and debris-strewn public housing
complex where she lives with her husband and daughter.
In this Jan. 29, 2016 photo, Tainara Lourenco, who's five months
pregnant, stands outside her stilt home that stands over polluted water
in a slum in Recife, Brazil. Lourenco became pregnant at a scary moment —
the dawn of an extraordinary Zika outbreak, as authorities came to
suspect that the virus was causing an alarming spike in a rare birth
defect called microcephaly. "If you have to get sick you will get sick,"
she said. "It's everywhere."