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Library | Material Type | Call Number | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Sugar Grove - Todd Library | Book | RA644 .Z56 D5613 2017 | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
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Summary
Summary
Winner of the 2017 Jabuti Book Prize
The Zika virus is devastating lives and communities. Children across the Americas are being born with severe disabilities because of it. Yet during the desolating outbreak, Brazil played host to both the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup, leading many to suspect that the true impact of the virus has been subject to a cover-up of international proportions.
Beginning in the northeast, where the devastation has been most felt, professor of bioethics and award-winning documentary filmmaker Debora Diniz travels across Brazil tracing the virus's origin and spread. Along the journey she meets a host of fearless families, doctors and scientists uncovering the virus's impact on local communities. In doing so Diniz paints a vivid picture of the Zika epidemic, exposing the Brazilian government's complicity in allowing the virus to spread while championing the efforts of local doctors and mothers who, working together, are raising awareness of the virus and fighting for the rights of children affected by Zika.
Reviews (1)
Booklist Review
Brazilian bioethicist and filmmaker Diniz provides an eyewitness account of the 2015 Zika epidemic in northeastern Brazil. Her narrative is largely constructed from interviews with doctors and lab scientists but, more notably, conversations with mothers whose babies suffered from congenital Zika microcephaly, an abnormally small head associated with brain damage. The Zika virus is in the same genus, Flavivirus, as yellow fever, dengue, and West Nile virus. It is primarily transmitted by mosquitoes, but transmission can also occur sexually. Although Zika typically produces mild symptoms (skin rash and joint pain), Guillain-Barre syndrome and congenital microcephaly can result. Diniz discusses the science of the Zika virus and hypotheses on how it arrived in Brazil and tracks the medical detective work that confirmed Zika's presence in Brazil and the virus's ability to cross the placenta and be transmitted from a pregnant woman to her fetus. By early 2017, Zika had been documented in 76 countries and territories. An important and informative book because Zika has become a growing health concern for women of reproductive age.--Miksanek, Tony Copyright 2017 Booklist