Keep momentum building to stop Zika virus’ spread

The rapid-fire chain of events to stop the spread of the Zika virus in the Western Hemisphere marches on at a dizzying pace:

President Barack Obama this week dispatched an urgent plea to Congress to approve a $1.9 billion package to combat Zika in Latin America and the U.S. It includes resources for heightened mosquito-control programs plus financing for vaccine research, public health and awareness activities and support for U.S. nationals in highly infected countries.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been placed on its highest level of alert to monitor and coordinate the response to the virus. It has done so none too soon, as the CDC reported Tuesday that it has found 14 new cases of suspected Zika infection in our nation caused by sexual transmission.

The worldwide community has united cohesively to halt Zika’s expansion. Brazil has dispatched 250,000 military personnel to quash the Aedes aegypti mosquito, source of the virus. In Cuba, President Raul Castro announced a massive nationwide campaign this week to spray neighborhoods and eliminate breeding spots for the malicious mosquito.

These and other positive proactive responses illustrate that public-health leaders in the United States and the world have learned lessons from what many considered a delayed and botched response to last year’s deadly Ebola virus outbreak.

Clearly, that momentum must continue vigilantly to swat to smithereens the Aedes aegypti. Dr. William Schaffner, past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, isn’t mincing words when he labels that Zika-spreading mosquito “as the most dangerous animal on the planet” today.

The new strain of the virus has been linked to skyrocketing cases of microcephaly, a birth defect that produces abnormally small skulls in the heads of newborns. Other medical authorities believe it has played a role in inducing Guillain-Barr syndrome, a neurological disorder that can lead to total paralysis. More research, however, is desperately needed to confirm or disprove those credible hypotheses.

NO ROOM FOR PANIC OR POLITICS

To be sure, there is cause for grave concern – but not for unbridled panic. As President Obama stressed to members of the National Governors Association this week, the most common symptoms from contracting the virus are relatively mild and include mild headaches, rashes, fevers and joint pains.

Nonetheless the potential long-term threats of severe birth defects and paralysis make Zika an enemy that must be confronted aggressively.

On the research front, CDC and the World Health Organization should expedite their planned research to establish whether Zika’s link to birth defects and paralysis can indeed be proved.

On the front lines of the battle, the U.S. can assist its southern neighbors in massive anti-mosquito spraying mission. The 910th Airlift Wing at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna Township could play a role in such a venture. After all, it has experience in such operations, having sprayed about 160,000 acres of Guam refugee camps years ago to pre-empt an outbreak of Dengue fever, which is spread by the same malevolent mosquito that transmits Zika.

Neither should the epidemic be used as a tool to achieve political ends, such as expanded abortion rights. Some groups have seized on the Zika’s possible link to birth defects an opportunity to push abortion-rights agendas. The progressive blog ThinkProgress, for example, calls broader support for abortion in South America “the Zika virus’ silver lining.”

Such political posturing can serve no useful good toward marshalling a strong united international front against the virus with a clear focus on solving its mysteries and stopping its spread.

The world, however is on a time clock that is ticking fast toward this summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the epicenter of the epidemic. The sooner the Zika spread can be controlled, the sooner the Games can be assured of going on without a cloud of fear hanging over them.

Thus far progress has been remarkable, but it remains incomplete. For our part, speedy congressional approval of Obama’s $1.9 billion Zika repellent would represent promise toward stopping the virus’ spread dead in its tracks.