The Minister of Health, Marcelo Castro, during a press conference on cases of microcephaly in Pernambuco (José Cruz / Brazil Agency)
The Ministry of Health declared a national health emergency on Wednesday because of the increase in the number of cases of microcephaly in infants in Pernambuco. The microcephaly is an anomaly in the skull that affect the brain development of infants. According to the minister Marcelo Castro, the number of cases in the state, which was only ten per year, soared to 141 in the past four months. There are also suspected cases in Rio Grande do Norte and Paraiba.
Infants with microcephaly are born with smaller head circumference than the average. The problem may be caused by a number of factors, from the mother malnutrition, drug abuse to infection during pregnancy, such as rubella, toxoplasmosis, cytomegalovirus.
"There is no record of a situation like this in recent history," said Claudio Maierovitch, director of the Department of Communicable Disease Surveillance. The Ministry of Health is monitoring the situation since October 22, when he was informed by the Pernambuco Health Department about the sudden increase in cases. A public health team tries to determine the cause of the outbreak, reviewing medical records and other health care records of pregnant women and newborns with the anomaly. Following international protocols, the World Health Organization was informed about the occurrences.
Suspicion - Although the Ministry of Health is still investigating the causes of the increase in cases, one of the suspects is the mother of contamination zika. Transmitted by the Aedes aegypti, the same mosquito that causes dengue, the virus causes fever, itching and red spots in the body. The disease arrived in Brazil this year and reached mainly northeastern states.
The increase in cases of babies with microcephaly coincides with the period in which pregnant women could have had contact with the virus. Earlier this year, Pernambuco faced a dengue epidemic and zika.113 328 infections were recorded in the state, five times more than had occurred in 2014.
"It's still a suspect. But much of the mothers had in common precisely the spots by the body during the early months of pregnancy," said the professor at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) and collaborator of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) Carlos Brito.
(With Estadão Content Agency and Brazil)
