Yesterday the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of the potential for the explosive spread of the Zika virus through the Americas. Margaret Chan, the director of the WHO, warned that the Americas could be hit by 4 million cases of Zika this year. The outbreak of Zika virus now centered in Brazil has been linked to a sudden increase in severe birth defects including microcephaly, babies born with tiny heads and brains. NPR reported yesterday that other neurological problems such as babies born blind may also be linked to Zika. Researchers do not yet understand Zika and have not yet proven causality, but the circumstantial evidence connecting the Zika outbreak to the sudden, large increase in birth defects is very strong.
Report yesterday quoted experts who said that Zika was a low risk to the United States because the U.S. doesn’t have the poverty and high population densities that have caused the explosive spread of Zika in Brazil, but Dr. Peter Hotez, a tropical disease researcher who lives in Texas, has warned that poverty and high population density makes Houston highly vulnerable to a Zika outbreak. He warned that the whole Gulf coast is already suffering from increasing levels of tropical diseases spread by mosquitoes, in particular dengue fever. Because Zika virus is related to dengue fever and has the same mosquito vector the expansion of dengue in the Gulf coast region is a good indicator of the potential spread of Zika virus.
The racism, dire poverty and inadequate government services of Texas and the Gulf states make impoverished African American communities the most vulnerable to the spread of Zika. But what happens in impoverished communities in the Americas won’t stay in those communities. The catastrophic income inequality in the big cities of Brazil that led to the explosive spread of Zika there is now threatening the Americas. Cases have been reported in Puerto Rico where it could be gaining a foothold. Zika cases have also been reported in Texas but cool January temperatures in Texas are not favorable for mosquito breeding. Dr Hotez warns that Zika will be a threat to Houston as soon as temperatures warm up this spring.
“I’m quite convinced it’s going to be all over the Caribbean within the next few weeks. And then, where’s next?” he said. “Where we’re standing here in the Gulf Coast … Pretty much all of the Gulf Coast cities are vulnerable but Houston is the largest.”
It is less than 15 minutes’ drive from Hotez’s office in the world’s biggest medical complex to the Fifth Ward, a historic, mostly African American quarter just north-east of downtown Houston.
When he hears experts assert that Zika is unlikely to spread significantly in the US, his response is: go to the Fifth Ward and look around.
Trash, particularly dumped tires, litter poor communities across the south. Our utter disregard as a nation for the conditions that poor people are living in is a threat to everyone’s health. We need to immediately expand Medicaid to all states, we need to clean up trash across the Gulf states immediately and we need to fund research on rapidly developing a vaccination for Zika now.
I just vacationed in Puerto Rico. I was shocked to see abandoned buildings in the middle of downtown San Juan, in what was supposed to be the good side of town. The people of Puerto Rico were warm and friendly but disinvestment and predation by hedge funds has ravaged their economy. There is a shortage of rest rooms for well-to-do tourists. I saw, when I went to certain beaches that the homeless are using overgrown swampy areas as bathrooms. The potential for disease spread under these conditions is obvious.
What happens in the fifth ward of Houston, the backwaters of Puerto Rico and the favelas of Brazil will not stay in those impoverished communities in the age of jet transport. Environmental justice and effective governance is necessary to protect the health of all Americans. Hedge fund predation isn’t just a threat to Puerto Rico. Growing income inequality threatens everyone’s health because diseases that hit poor communities spread to wealthier ones. The lack of adequate health care and basic sanitation in Houston and the Republican controlled Gulf coast threatens all of us.
“I could show you dozens of neighborhoods like this in south-east Texas, along the Gulf Coast,” said Hotez. “What we have is dilapidated housing, inadequate or absent window screens, standing water, poor drainage, which are going to allow the mosquitoes to breed, and then the classic piece to this is the discarded tyres along the side of the road. Aedes mosquitoes love discarded tyres filled with water.”