A number of factions within Venezuela’s socialist left are seeking a way to remove President Nicolás Maduro, in a last-ditch effort to “save the Revolution” begun by late dictator Hugo Chávez.
Cuban doctor Yoahn Batista succeeded on his second try to escape the oppression of the Castro communist regime, fleeing a mission in Brazil and arriving in the United States this week. Among the first words spoke upon landing in Miami, Batista tells the world, “They are using us as slaves. That is the reality.”
Venezuela’s socialist president Nicolás Maduro has replaced his vice president of economy after only a month in office. Luis Salas was considered an “alarming” nomination last month for past statements in which he asserted that “inflation does not exist.”
Doctors have found the Zika virus in areas of the body protected from the immune system, such as seminal fluid, fetal brain tissue, and the placenta.
Global health authorities and government officials are mobilizing to battle the fast-spreading Zika virus, sending rapid-response teams to affected regions, issuing travel warnings for pregnant women, accelerating vaccine trials and even deploying mosquito-fighting troops to hard-hit areas in Brazil.
The United Nations is renewing its push to eradicate the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) from the only community in Latin America known to practice it: the Emberá tribe, native to western Colombia. The centuries-old practice is treated so secretively
The government of Venezuela has confirmed three deaths directly related to the Zika pandemic sweeping Latin America, while medical experts throughout the country report an alarming rise in the number of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a disease Zika is suspected of triggering in certain patients.
Venezuela’s opposition legislature has declared a “nutritional emergency,” proclaiming that the country simply does not have enough food to feed its population. The move comes after years of socialist rationing and shortages that forced millions to wait on lines lasting as long as six hours for a pint of milk, a bag of flour, or carton of cooking oil.
Brazil’s tourism industry is already suffering from the international alarm over the Zika virus outbreak that has infected 1.5 million people, with tour operators and hotel bookers experiencing an increase in the number of cancellations, particularly on the part of pregnant women who were planning to travel.
An Australian doctor with the Olympic team believes the Rio water poses more of a threat towards the athletes than the Zika virus.
Doctors have found the Zika virus in placentas of two U.S. women who contracted the virus. They suffered miscarriages after they returned to the states.
A doctor in Brazil has discovered numerous microcephaly cases that predate the Zika outbreak.
President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff hosted a meeting among leaders of various Brazilian Christian denominations Tuesday, requesting they actively engage their congregation in awareness and prevention methods to combat the ongoing Zika epidemic in the region.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that doctors had confirmed the presence of Zika virus in the tissue of infants who died from microcephaly, a rare birth defect.
China has confirmed its first case of Zika, a 34-year-old man who traveled to Venezuela. Authorities are particularly concerned that the man stopped in Hong Kong before reaching his final destination, home to a mosquito species potentially capable of carrying the virus.
Local mosquito control departments in the Gulf Coast will be the front lines of the fight against the Zika virus in the United States, reports Wired magazine.
Brazil will feature forty refugee children in its largest parade celebrating the national holiday Carnival, including children from Syria, Sudan, Angola, and Libya. The children will march in a procession expected to draw thousands, even amid Latin America’s Zika virus pandemic.
Facing significant shortages of imported insect repellants in light of Latin America’s Zika pandemic, Argentines are turning to an online market selling mosquito-eating frogs and toads to protect their homes from Aedes aegypti, the carrier of Zika, Dengue fever, and Chikungunya.
The Brazilian government made efforts to warn revelers before the annual Carnival celebrations to protect themselves from the Zika virus by wearing long-sleeved clothing and avoiding kissing and sexual contact, particularly pregnant women.
International Planned Parenthood Federation in the Western Hemisphere region (IPPF/WHR) is seemingly taking advantage of the Zika outbreak in the Americas, the hardest hit region by the mosquito-borne virus, to ask for donations to expand access to abortions and birth control.
A private clinic in Brazil has recommended pregnant women wear burqas to protect themselves against Zika due to possible connections to the rare birth defect microcephaly.
The UN has demanded Latin American countries give women access to abortions and birth control due to the ongoing Zika virus outbreak in the region.
Doctors in Brazil say they are shocked by what they perceive as a surge in the number of women raising children with microcephaly alone, after their male partners leave them, blaming the woman for their child’s disorder. The number of microcephaly cases in Brazil has increased significantly since the current outbreak of the Zika virus began.
The Brazilian Conference of Catholic Bishops has rejected the left’s attempt to promote abortion in areas affected by Zika.
Brazilian health officials are warning pregnant women to seriously consider who they kiss and to use condoms if they have been in countries were the Zika virus is present. “The flurry of recommendations began in Brazil, where a top health
The government of Colombia has confirmed 3,100 cases of pregnant women with the Zika virus, but no cases of the birth defect microcephaly.
At Saturday’s Republican presidential primary debate, Dr. Ben Carson asserted he would be open to quarantining individuals returning from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics if they exhibited symptoms of having contracted the Zika virus, calling Latin America’s Zika outbreak “obviously a big deal.”
As Brazil struggles to contain the Zika virus in what has now become a pandemic, the nation officially begins its annual Carnival. Despite experts deeming the scantily clad nationwide block party an “explosive cocktail” for a mosquito-borne illness, thousands are expected to flood the streets of the nation’s biggest cities and have a good time.
The government of Venezuela has received its first shipment of oil imported from the United States – 500,000 barrels from West Texas Intermediate (WTI), purchased through Venezuela’s U.S.-based affiliate, Citgo Oil.
In an op-ed, El Salvador Vice Minister of Health Eduardo Espinoza stated the government uses mosquito-eating fish to fight against the Zika virus.
Media outlets in Venezuela are reporting that at least eleven patients nationwide have died of Guillain-Barré syndrome, though the government’s Health Ministry has yet to report any of the cases, and most appear linked to the Zika virus pandemic ravaging Latin America.
On SiriusXM POTUS’s Michael Smerconish Show Thursday, Dr. Art Caplan of the NYU Langone Medical Center urged the Brazilian government and International Olympic Committee to delay the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, warning that tourists will not attend the events due to Latin America’s Zika virus pandemic.
President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil delivered a national primetime address on Wednesday night on the Zika virus pandemic that has hit the South American nation with particular severity, detailing how the Brazilian military has begun awareness and fumigation operations nationwide.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus has shed light on serious shortcomings in the public health systems of the affected countries, most of which are located in Latin America.
At a historic summit in Uruguay, the health ministers of fourteen Latin American nations, alongside representatives from the regional wing of the World Health Organization, agreed on a number of measures to contain the Zika virus pandemic consuming the continent, including a “fast access” Zika information network at airports and border crossings.
Brazilian celebrity doctor Varella Varella claimed officials have banned abortion to punish poor mothers. Fear of microcephaly due to Zika and a leftist pro-abortion campaign have resulted in a spike in dangerous illegal abortions in Brazil.
A number of former Venezuela cabinet members under Hugo Chávez are calling for an investigation into hundreds of billions of dollars that are unaccounted for in national oil revenue, accusing members of President Nicolás Maduro’s government of embezzling the funds.
Some U.S. national pro-life groups are denouncing the left’s promotion of abortion as a solution to the Zika virus pandemic that is spreading throughout the Americas.
The Health Ministry of Brazil has requested that American virologists travel to Zika-affected areas and hold high-level meetings with their medical experts, as they collaborate to find a vaccine to prevent the disease from spreading further.
A 24-year-old Brazilian journalist says she is a “fulfilled, happy woman” despite her lifelong struggle with microcephaly, and that she has “taken personally” the promotion of abortions in cases like hers from leftist groups, following the discovery of a link between microcephaly and the pervasive Zika virus.
