With Covid-19 gripping the world, Brazil and the rest of the world forgot about Zika and the Zika babies—children whose mothers were infected with the virus while pregnant during a virulent outbreak of the mosquito-borne illness in 2015 and 2016
Ana Ipojuca holds the hand of her son Christian, 6, as an opthamologist checks his eyes in Recife, Brazil, June 2, 2022. Some of the babies born with devastating defects by mothers infected with the mosquito-borne Zika virus during a 2015-2016 outbreak are now 7, and families in this scrappy corner of Brazil are struggling to get help for their children, whose mysterious condition constantly presents new challenges. (Dado Galdieri/The New York Times)
RECIFE, Brazil — A procession of mothers pushed children in bulky wheelchairs down a long corridor at a health center in this northeastern Brazilian city, passing patients who glanced at the children, looked away, then looked back, quickly and uneasily.
The children were smartly turned out in Disney T-shirts, striped socks, plastic sandals. Girls had ponytails tied with big bows; many wore brightly colored glasses. And all were profoundly disabled, their limbs rigid, their mouths slack, many with foreheads that sloped sharply back above their dark eyes.
©2019 New York Times News Service