How Latinas can Fight the Zika Virus Through Contraceptives

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Zika virus has been making headlines during the past weeks due to outbreaks in several parts of the Americas. In fact, it is now considered as a global health threat. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), zika virus is "an emerging mosquito-borne virus that was first identified in Uganda in 1947 in rhesus monkeys through a monitoring network of sylvatic yellow fever."

Today, it is being transmitted via the Aedes mosquitoes, but a report from BBC reveals how a patient in Dallas, Texas, has been infected with the zika virus through sex. The infected patient did not travel to places in which zika virus had spread, but his or her partner had returned from Venezuela. The CDC claims that this is the first case during this outbreak in which the virus was spread through sexual contact. Another similar case occurred in 2013.

According to the CDC, the zika virus is a threat most especially to pregnant women, as reports of birth defects, specifically microcephaly, has been reported as a result of becoming infected with the virus during pregnancy.

Because the zika virus can be transmitted through both mosquito bites and sexual contact, health authorities are highlighting the importance of contraceptives in the fight against zika virus infactions. In fact, Latina reports that the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) seems appalled at some government organization's recommendations to delay pregnancy because of the spread of zika virus. PAHO believes that instead of delaying pregnancy, governments should instead expand access to contraception in Latin American countries.

Countries that have urged their people to delay pregnancy include Ecuador, Colombia, the Domininan Republic, Jamaica, Honduras, Panama and El Salvador, as well as Puerto Rico.

"That's not the solution," PAHO's Latin American Center for Perinatology, Women and Reproductive Health director Suzanne Serruya said. "We've got to reduce the vector [the Aedes aegypti mosquito] and to ensure women have greater access to contraception."

The zika virus health issue has brought forth light to the pressing concerns of women's health in Latin American countries because of the lack of access to safe, legal abortions. Only Uruguay, Guyana, and Guiana have legalized abortion, while Mexico, Colombia, and Panama allow abortions because of fetail impairment.

Now that the zika virus is hitting the Americas hard, it seems that more reproductive health reforms are required to address not only the zika virus issue, but also the issue on how Latin American women are deprived of their right to quality reproductive health products and services.

Zoe Schlanger wrote on Newsweek, "Others have wondered whether Zika could become for Latin America what a rubella scare was for the United States in the 1960s."

"Before then, abortion was characterized in the U.S. as a procedure relied on only by sexually promiscuous women of low socioeconomic status," Schlanger explained. "But then a rubella epidemic exploded—and women who contracted the disease began giving birth to permanently disabled babies. That began to change the conversation about abortion."