Zika Virus Infection and a Missed Opportunity

Editorial

Zika virus infection becomes the big consideration in medicine at pesent since the infection can seriously affect the health of the infected person. Theall et al., noted that “it presents an unprecedented opportunity to shift public health policy, legislation, and programming to bolster and support the rights of all women to achieve the highest attainable standard of health and well-being now and for the future [1]. Indeed, the problem of Zika virus infection is the present big concern for women around the world. There are many proposed infection control method and most directly involve the women. The role of the clinical microbiology for diagnosis of the disease is confirmed but the issue adding to the post diagnosis phase should be discussed. Since the diagnosis of infection can be the marker of “serious disease” to a person, there must be the good management. This situation is similar to the post HIV diagnosis in the early phase of worldwide HIV epidemic.

The rights of the women relating to the infection process is an interesting issue [2]. In different countries, there might be different methods. In general, “advice” is usually given and contraception is widely used. Nevertheless, it is still the right of each woman to select and use or not use contraception. In case that contraception is a mandatory requirement and it is forced by local government, it can be a big issue in women rights. On the other hand, in case that there is no mandatory requirement, the equity in assessment to the contraception or other prevention tools is a big topic for consideration. Finally, the pregnant women who already get infection should get the standard management. Abortion or not is another interesting discussed topic. Of interest, not all infected mothers will give birth to abnormal babies and many infections are asymptomatic [3]. While strict disease control is needed, the basic principle that all human beings have their own rights in selecting and receiving health suggestion and service has to be maintained.

1. Theall KP, Wallace M, Wesson DM (2016) Zika: A Missed Opportunity to Protect Women's Health and Prevent Unwanted Pregnancies. Women’s Health Issues: 2-4. Link: https://goo.gl/IvorrZ
2. Roa M (2016) Zika virus outbreak: reproductive health and rights in Latin America. Lancet 387: 843. Link: https://goo.gl/2LvQIi
3. Wiwanitkit S, Wiwanitkit V (2016) Afebrile, asymptomatic and non-thrombocytopenic Zika virus infection: Don't miss it! Asian Pac J Trop Med 9: 513. Link: https://goo.gl/hqx7QH

© 2016 Wiwanitkit V. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.