Student Discussion Archive: Zika in Brazil became a justice issue as the Olympics unfolded
Student Discussion Archive 1: Zika in Brazil became a justice issue as the Olympics unfolded.
My co-author and I have speculated that the WHO in part may have initiated the PHEIC (Public Health emergency of international concern) due to the possibility that pregnant women, who attended and/or participated in the Olympics, may return to their nations and have babies that are disabled, and dramatically so — a risk that was too great to gamble against.
Part 2 of our publication on Zika addresses human rights, advocating Right to Health, and Environmental Justice. It is the role of PH to protect all people. We set forth a globalized and universal approach to Zika control in our work, including a non-gender specific approach to what is essentially, in the US, a taboo subject — sexual and fecal-oral transmission pathways — the proverbial “two-way street”, for community outreach/PH public health messaging. Unless we are straight with the public (and we were not with COVID-19 early incident) we cannot expect the public to make meaningful additions to community health (our present pandemic conundrum). We spent much time trying to characterize the potential transmission opportunities that are directly translational to COVID-19, Monkey pox (Mpox; https://www.cdc.gov/poxvirus/mpox/if-sick/transmission.html ), and Zika. You will find that many PH problems are “wicked problems,” controversial, and some are complicated by misinformation and conspiracy theory.
Please have a read and make comment.
Best,
Ray
