It is gaining ground. The epidemic of Zikawhich strikes South America, Central America and the West Indies, arrives in europe and progressing in Africa. After Cape Verde (archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean), it is the turn of Guinea-Bissau, in West Africa, to identify three cases of contamination with the Zika virus. Cape Verde has already recorded more than 7,500 cases since October 2015. In Guinea-Bissau, “the authorities are mobilizing to prevent an endemic from setting in“, according to Guinea Conakry Info.
Do not repeat the communication errors experienced for Ebola
For the moment, the cases of Zika in Guinea-Bissau focus on the Bijagos archipelago, in the Atlantic, off Bissau. The Bissau-Guinean government has nevertheless announced the creation of a commission to fight Zika to prevent the virus from spreading on the continent as much as possible. The arrival of Zika in Africa indeed worries the health authorities in a region weakened by the recent Ebola virus epidemic. “To avoid the worst, the first measures to be taken concern the sanitation of the environment, to eliminate the privileged breeding pockets of the mosquito which are: stagnant dirty water, garbage, open-air bins. ” remember Guinea Conakry Info. The magazine also emphasizes that “vigilance is required in all circumstances“and that it is time”to develop behavioral messages adapted to local realities, to avoid any panic, but to avoid any trivialization. Communication errors can be fatal as it was with Ebola. “
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