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Sheila Maria Ferraz Mendon\u00e7a de Souza, deputy-director of research and innovation Ensp\/Fiocruz and N\u00edsia Trindade Lima, president of Fiocruz. Photo: Virginia Damas, Ensp\/Fiocruz.<\/p><\/div>\n
This was the first meeting of the Social Sciences Research Group of ZIKAlliance, a multinational and multi-disciplinary research consortium comprised of partners worldwide and coordinated by Inserm, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research.<\/p>\n
N\u00edsia Trindade Lima, president of Fiocruz and co-chair of the Social Sciences Research Group of ZIKAlliance, said that it is a major challenge to work with the human and social aspects of an epidemic in which efforts are focused mainly on diagnosis, treatment and on the mosquito:<\/p>\n
“this is not about a war of mosquitoes against\u00a0humanity, but about social processes that explain this proliferation. However, in the media and on people’s imaginary this is the strongest association,” she said.<\/p>\n
N\u00edsia added that this\u00a0research network also means\u00a0an opportunity to discuss sexual rights in Brazil, an issue that re-emerged in the zika outbreak.\u00a0She also mentioned some aims of the consortium, including proposals\u00a0for an integrated research agenda and a shared database.<\/p>\n
The side effects of interventions<\/strong><\/p>\n Jocelyn Raud, co-chair of \u00a0of the Social Sciences Research Group of ZIKAlliance talked about the side effects of interventions against vector-borne diseases.<\/p>\n Jocelyn Raud (Inserm and Universit\u00e9 Sorbonne Paris Cit\u00e9). Photo: Virginia Damas, Ensp\/Fiocruz.<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cWe tend to underestimate the complexity of both social and natural worlds and even when the intention is to improve health or reduce the circulation of the virus, sometimes we can worsen the situation,” he highlighted.<\/p>\n The researcher explained that health campaigns tend to promote changes in behavior, such as stimulating the use of condoms in the case of AIDS.<\/p>\n However, when the disease rates fall, the population tends to\u00a0relax in the protective behavior and as a consequence the number of cases may rise again.<\/p>\n With experience in vector-borne disease analysis\u00a0in French tropical territories,\u00a0such as R\u00e9union and French Guiana, Jocelyn mentioned some examples of campaigns that have had negative effects.<\/p>\n One of the them was\u00a0the case of West Nile Virus in Colorado. In 2003, two adjacent cities had severe outbreaks of the disease. Unexpectedly, disease rates were higher in the city with a\u00a0more extensive mosquito control program, due to the tendency of abandoning \u00a0protective measures when\u00a0a disease is under control.<\/p>\n The scientific facts about zika<\/strong><\/p>\n Ilana L\u00f6wy, researcher at Inserm explained that her presentation\u00a0was inspired by Ludvick Fleck 1935 classical study The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact, <\/em>in which he argues that cognition is always a collective activity.<\/p>\n Ilana L\u00f6wy (Inserm) is also associated researchr at Casa de Oswaldo Cruz\/Fiocruz. Photo: Virginia Damas Ensp\/Fiocruz.<\/p><\/div>\n In order to discuss the scientific facts about zika, she quoted the former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had declared in the context of the Iraq War that there\u00a0are things we know that we know<\/em>, things that we know we don’t know<\/em> and things that we don’t know we don’t know<\/em>.<\/p>\n The researcher said that in the case of zika we already know that the disease can cause\u00a0Guillan-Barre syndrome and microcephaly, but we do not know why there is such a large concentration of brain malformations in Northeast Brazil and not in other parts\u00a0of the country or in Africa.<\/p>\n Regarding the ignored facts about zika, Ilana mentioned\u00a0the sexual transmission.<\/p>\n “In the US zika discussion\u00a0is only about sexual transmission, but here in Brazil we don\u2019t talk much about that. \u00a0There are so many mosquitoes that it is hard to tell when zika is transmitted sexually or by the mosquito,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n Zika and the problem of neglect in global health<\/strong><\/p>\n The dynamics of defining priorities on\u00a0global health were addressed by Jo\u00e3o Nunes, lecturer in\u00a0International Relations at the University of York.<\/p>\n According to the researcher, neglect in global health should be understood beyond\u00a0its most common idea, that certain diseases\u00a0do not serve to the interests of \u00a0big players or donors.<\/p>\n Jo\u00e3o Nunes, lecturer on International Relations at the University of York. Photo: Virginia Damas Ensp\/Fiocruz.<\/p><\/div>\n Jo\u00e3o admits\u00a0that interests are important, but highlights\u00a0that this element alone can not explain why certain issues emerge into the global health agenda and\u00a0others don’t.<\/p>\n The researcher further stated that neglect\u00a0is\u00a0fundamentally a relationship between groups.<\/p>\n “The relationship that produces neglect is one of domination. Some groups are systematically placed in a position of subordination and disadvantage,” he said.<\/p>\n Regarding zika, Jo\u00e3o believes that the disease got a lot of attention, but he added that “it is not a matter of quantity of attention, it is about the quality of attention.”<\/p>\n Using ebola as an example, the researcher said that neither the efforts employed nor the visibility on media changed the neglected status of the disease, which is still\u00a0seen as an African problem.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Researchers of the international consortium ZIKAlliance gathered at Fiocruz to discuss the social aspects of the disease, such as the effects of campaigns and sexual rights. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":7243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[93,112,899,494,900],"class_list":["post-7230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-fiocruz","tag-hcs-manguinhos","tag-zika-alliance","tag-zika-virus","tag-zikalliance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7230"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7246,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7230\/revisions\/7246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Jocelyn-zika.jpg\")
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She added\u00a0a fourth category to approach the facts about \u00a0zika –\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>things that we know, but consciously or unconsciously we decide to ignore.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.revistahcsm.coc.fiocruz.br\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/joao-zika-post.jpg\")