MICROCEFALIA NO CICLO DE VIDA MATERNO-INFANTIL E SUA REPERCUSSÃO NA SAÚDE MENTAL

Abstract

The Zika virus (ZIKAV) is a neurotropic flavivirus that relates to the dengue, Yellow Fever and West Nile viruses. Although it has been identified for the first time in the world in 1947 in Zika Forest in Uganda, Africa, its first autochthonous transmission in Brazil was confirmed only in April 2015, with estimates that more than a million people in Brazil have been infected by this virus. In this way, it has shown its ability to produce outbreaks in large scale where the mosquito Aedes aegypti, the main vector in Brazil, is endemic1. The ZIKAV was originally isolated from a female Rhesus monkey with fever in the Zika forest, located in Uganda, in 1947, and relates to the virus of yellow fever and dengue fever, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito4. After the beginning of the outbreak of ZIKAV, there was an increase in new cases of microcephaly in Brazil in newborns, being 1,248 new suspected cases in the year 2015, which can be classified as a jump in the number of confirmed cases1. From 2010 to 2014, the average number of cases of microcephaly recorded annually in the Information System on Live Births (SINASC) was 156, however, in 2015, until December 1, there were already 1,248 newborns in the country with this pathology2, 3. The growth in the number of insects and small animals in the cities results from the process of disorderly growth and economic and structural inequalities prevalent in the urban space. Thus, due to the lack of investment and planning, many regions suffer from a lack of infrastructure, especially in Northeast Brazil, such as neighborhoods in outlying areas and sites with many open sewers, ineffective garbage collection, which provides the proliferation of pests and diseases caused by them. To combat pests, a good pest control is not enough; there is need for a proper public policy5. The most common causes of microcephaly may be associated with the genetic or environmental factors. Some environmental factors include perinatal hypoxia, congenital