SUMMARY: In Brazil, health workers are searching for the smoking gun link between the virus and infant microcephaly, while troops attack mosquito breeding grounds and mothers of affected children face the long-term consequences. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now to the growing effort to rein in the mosquito-borne Zika virus spreading through parts of South and Central America. It is suspected of being the cause devastating birth defects in children who are born to women who become infected during pregnancy.
Our science correspondent, Miles O’Brien, has been reporting on developments from Brazil, which has been hard-hit by the virus.
Tonight, he looks at ways doctors and scientists are racing to get ahead of the outbreak.
MILES O’BRIEN (NewsHour): It’s Carnival week in Brazil, the raucous run-up to Lent, when people take to the streets to party their worries away. But this year, it’s harder to mask reality, as a frightening epidemic also marches through the nation.
DR. ADRIANA SCAVUZZI, Obstetrician, IMIP: They come to us asking many questions, and we cannot say almost nothing with 100 percent sure. What we have to do is to support them. That’s all we have to do.
MILES O’BRIEN: Dr. Adriana Scavuzzi is an obstetrician at one of the largest hospitals in Recife, the epicenter of a fast-moving outbreak of the Zika virus; a flavivirus virus in the same family as Yellow Fever, West Nile, and Dengue.
In each case, the virus hitchhikes on a tenacious day-biting mosquito called Aedes Aegypti that has origins in Africa and is now spreading throughout the globe. Two-month-old Nicollas Pereira has an abnormally small head, microcephaly.
Doctors at this hospital would normally see 10 cases like this a year. But starting in August, there were suddenly 10 to 20 a month.
Dr. Ana Van Der Linden is a pediatric neurologist. She says Nicollas must contend with an array of permanent mental and physical problems.
DR. ANA VAN DER LINDEN, Pediatric Neurologist, IMIP (through interpreter):With this impairment, we see that reflex reactions are good, but voluntary actions that depend on better brain development will be impaired. He will have bad motor skills and mental development. He can also have abnormal vision, hearing disorders, and bone malformation.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): We turn now to the crisis at the U.S. border, and what’s driving the wave of migrant children to make the dangerous journey.
As we saw from President Obama’s meeting today with the leaders of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, many of the factors at play stem from violence and instability in those countries.
To help us better understand the situation in Central America, Anita Isaacs is a professor at Haverford College. She studies U.S.-Latin America relations and regional politics. She also recently returned from Guatemala as part of a State Department study on civil society.
So, I want to ask, even with these kind of lofty aspirations that the president laid out today, what’s the likelihood that the underlying conditions in these countries changes?
ANITA ISAACS, Rutherford College: Yes, I mean, I think that’s a great question.
And I think that, you know, the leaders, the president — the Central American leaders came to the United States to request a compassionate response from President Obama and the U.S. Congress and the U.S. people.
And I think that, to some extent, you know, amid the sea of anti-immigrant diatribe, we have seen some compassionate responses from — both from some members of Congress, Representative Engel in particular, and from sectors of U.S. society.
I think the real challenge now is whether we are going to see the same compassionate response in Central American countries, where the conditions that are — that fuel migration speak to tremendous inequalities, tremendous poverty and tremendous violence.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): For more on what’s causing today’s circumstances, and possible remedies, we turn to Marshall Fitz. He’s director of immigration policy with the Center for American progress. It’s a left-leaning think tank in Washington. And Jessica Vaughan, she’s the director for policy studies at the right-leaning Center for Immigration Studies.
And we welcome you both to the program.
Marshall Fitz, let me start with you. I want to ask you both this question. What’s your understanding of why we are seeing this big influx of children, especially from Central America?
MARSHALL FITZ, Center for American Progress: Well, it’s clear that the major drivers behind this recent influx are the conditions in the sending countries.
We know this for a fact because they are dispersing throughout the region. It’s a regional crisis. There’s a 712 percent increase in asylum applications in Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, Costa Rica. So, the immigrants are leaving those three countries because of the endemic violence, the weak institutional government, and lack of protections for the civil society there.
And it’s happening now because that violence is escalating. Honduras is the murder capital of the world.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And in fact, we have a — I think we have a graphic to show our audience, what is it, 90 — the highest number of deaths per 100,000 people, followed — the third country in that list is El Salvador — or, rather, the fourth is El Salvador and the fifth being Guatemala.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
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