SALVADOR,
Brazil — Nearly a quarter of a million soldiers, sailors and other
military personnel began fanning through Brazilian cities over the
weekend as part of an ambitious campaign to combat the mosquitoes that
are spreading Zika, the virus believed to be linked to a surge in infants born with severe brain damage.
Yet
instead of insecticide and repellent, the troops were armed with wads
of fliers that instruct residents how to reduce the breeding grounds for
Aedes aegypti,
the mosquito that transmits Zika, dengue fever and a
close cousin, chikungunya.
“At
least once a week we should take 15 minutes, which isn’t much, to see,
inspect and clean our homes,” Marcelo Castro, the Brazilian health
minister, said on Saturday during a news conference here in Salvador, a
city in the northeast of Brazil where cases of dengue and Zika have been soaring.
“More
than two-thirds of the mosquitoes breed inside homes,” Mr. Castro said.
“The army, navy, air force, military police, fire departments and
agents who fight epidemics cannot do this alone.”
Called
“Zika Zero,” the national campaign reflects the growing urgency among
Brazilian officials who are battling both the spread of the virus and
international alarm that some worry could dampen attendance at the
Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The outbreak, declared a global emergency
by the World Health Organization two weeks ago, began here last May and
has since spread to 25 countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.
The public awareness campaign was kicked off by President Dilma Rousseff
and more than two dozen cabinet members, many of them wearing T-shirts
under dark blazers that were emblazoned with a cartoon image of a dead
mosquito. The tagline: “A mosquito is not stronger than an entire
country.” Among those enlisted were the president of the nation’s
Central Bank.
Their
message — that Brazilians are largely responsible for controlling
mosquitoes in and around their homes — has received mixed reactions from
some residents, who said they had hoped that the government might play a
more direct role in reducing mosquito populations through the
widespread application of insecticides or by improving sanitation in
impoverished communities.
Sitting
in her home in a densely packed slum not far from the Atlantic Ocean,
Joanice Jesus Bispo, 41, complained about neighbors who were unmoved by
messages about the dangers of standing water. But the government, she
said, could also be doing more. “Sometimes the garbage piles up here for
days, and it would be nice if they sprayed for mosquitoes once in a
while,” she said.
Epidemiologists
and public health experts said the emphasis on personal responsibility
was a prudent one, given the government’s limited resources and the
particular habits of Aedes aegypti, a mosquito that was eradicated in Brazil
more than a half-century ago but has since re-established itself here
and in scores of other countries across the Western Hemisphere.
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