{"id":50008488,"date":"2017-02-10T14:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T14:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stage.dialogochino.net\/?p=8488"},"modified":"2023-01-25T10:47:50","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T10:47:50","slug":"8488-deforestation-sparks-yellow-fever-outbreak-in-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/forests\/8488-deforestation-sparks-yellow-fever-outbreak-in-brazil\/","title":{"rendered":"Deforestation sparks yellow fever outbreak in Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Year after year, Brazilians are suffering from outbreaks of tropical diseases that the vast majority of its 207 million inhabitants have never even heard of. First, it was dengue fever, then the\u00a0Zika virus<\/a>\u00a0struck, last year it was\u00a0Chikungunya<\/a>, and now\u00a0yellow fever<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These\u00a0diseases<\/a>\u00a0have affected almost 2 million people in rural and urban areas in Brazil, in both hot and cold regions, and in coastal and interior areas of this vast country that spans 8.5 million square kilometres. All these diseases were eradicated at the beginning of the last century. So why have they returned?<\/p>\n

Experts say that there is no single reason, but they\u2019re all transmitted by the same species of mosquito:\u00a0Aedes aegypti<\/em>. For now, the strain of yellow fever that is\u00a0spreading<\/a>\u00a0across Brazil is transmitted only by the\u00a0Haemagogus<\/em>\u00a0mosquito, which inhabits the forests. First the mosquitoes bite the natural hosts of the disease, monkeys. Then they bite humans, passing on the virus. When the trees are cut down, the mosquitoes increasingly infect whoever is at ground level.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeforestation has always been one of the major causes of tropical diseases in Brazil\u201d, said Ulysses Confalonieri, a researcher at the\u00a0Oswaldo Cruz Foundation<\/a>\u00a0and a joint winner of the 2007 Nobel PeacePrize<\/a>\u00a0awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Confalonieri spent two years in the forests of northern Brazil specifically studying the yellow fever mosquito and thinks this latest cycle of yellow fever is attributable to forest loss.<\/p>\n

Deforestation and tropical diseases<\/h2>\n

Last year, Brazil lost almost\u00a08000 square kilometres<\/a>\u00a0of forest. According to the NGO Observat\u00f3rio do Clima, this is an increase of 29% over the previous year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the largest increase in the rate of deforestation since 2008. Altogether, in this decade alone the Amazon has lost the equivalent of half of Panama,\u201d stated Observatorio do Clima\u2019s Claudio Angelo. Between 2000 and 2014, Brazil lost an average of 2.7 million hectares of forest per year, this despite the fact the rate of deforestation has been falling since 2004, according to recent\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0by the World Resource Institute (WRI).<\/p>\n

The same report, however, shows an increase in destruction in the state of Minas Gerais, precisely where the wild strain of yellow fever is now appearing. This is the same place where a\u00a0dam<\/a>\u00a0belonging to mining company Samarco burst in November 2015. The\u00a0Mariana disaster<\/a>, as Brazil\u2019s greatest environmental\u00a0tragedy<\/a>\u00a0has come to be known, killed 19 people, destroyed five villages, and contaminated 2,220 hectares as well as a 663-kilometre stretch of the Doce River, the mouth of which flows into the Atlantic Ocean. The 32 million cubic metres of iron ore tailings swept away everything in its path, including mosquitoes predators such as frogs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a possibility that we will never be able to prove because there is no data on local fauna monitoring prior to the accident in Mariana,\u201d says Confalonieri.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned of the possibility that the disease might\u00a0spread<\/a>\u00a0to neighbouring countries with similar ecosystems to Brazil, such as Argentina, Venezuela, and Paraguay. According to the\u00a0WHO<\/a>, as of February 2, Brazil was the only country in the region to have confirmed cases of\u00a0yellow fever<\/a>\u00a0in humans. In Colombia and Peru, possible cases have been recorded. According to the Brazilian Ministry of Health, between December 1 2016 and February 6 2017 1,006 suspected cases of the disease were\u00a0reported<\/a>. 180 of these were confirmed to be yellow fever. Of the 157 deaths reported, 65 were confirmed, 89 are still being investigated. Three were ruled out. Of the 1,202 dead primates, 259 were confirmed to have had yellow fever.<\/p>\n

Vaccines<\/h2>\n

Unlike the other three tropical diseases, there is a vaccine against yellow fever. Within 10 days of a single shot, recipients have near life-long immunity. The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation produces 9 million doses of vaccine per month and exports the vaccine to Africa and other Latin American countries.<\/p>\n

The outbreak of wild\u00a0yellow fever<\/a>\u00a0was slow to be detected despite new patients arriving from the countryside into large urban centres complaining of severe abdominal pain, headache, high fever and vomiting. Some were only correctly diagnosed when their eyes turned yellow and their livers ceased to function properly.<\/p>\n

The first warning appeared only at the beginning of this year, when new mayors took office and learned what was happening through local public health clinics \u2013the first place the rural populations turns to for help. The federal government fears wild yellow fever could turn into urban yellow fever. This would mean the disease becoming transmittable by the\u00a0Aedes aegypti<\/em>\u00a0mosquito, which infests Brazil\u2019s most populous cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n

Urban yellow fever was eradicated in 1942 but its return is unlikely to lead to tragedy according to Confalonieri who says its impacts will be limited because Brazil produces the vaccine. \u201cThe Ministry of Health says that national vaccine coverage is 63%. That\u2019s not bad, it\u2019s good, but by the time the virus returns to the city we need to reach over 90% to avoid a large-scale epidemic,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WHO warns outbreak of disease linked to forest loss in Brazil could spread to other countries<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40000225,"featured_media":50026605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50039902],"tags":[531,551],"hashtags":[],"country":[50000021],"class_list":["post-50008488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-forests","tag-deforestation","tag-health","country-brazil"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDeforestation sparks yellow fever outbreak in Brazil | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"WHO warns outbreak of disease linked to forest loss in Brazil could spread to other countries\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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