MARIGOT – Senator Guillaume Arnell has expressed his concerns about the outbreak of the zika virus to the French Minister of Public Health, Marisol Tourraine.
In a letter dated January 19, Arnell says that he is concerned about the development of the epidemic and he asks which measures the minister has in mind and whether she is going to obelize regional health authorities in the Antillean Collectivité’s and Guyana.
Arnell notes in his letter that zika was first reported in Africa, Asia and the Pacific but that in 2015 it reached the American continent where Brazil in particular has been affected.
“A dozen countries in Latin America have been infected since the beginning of 2016, with between 440,000 and 1.3 million cases reported according to the virology-lab at the Pasteur Institute in Guyana.”
In December 2015, the first cases were registered in Guyana, Martinique and Saint Martin, Arnell wrote to Minister Tourraine. More than 600 cases have been reported in the Antilles, among them two pregnant women.
The effects of zika on health are still little known. Specialists think that the consequences are neurological and that pregnant women run the risk of giving birth to a baby with an unusual small head.
Arnell sounds the alarm about zika epidemic
