Brazil’s southernmost state has banned the use of a mosquito larvicide that an Argentine doctors' group says is to blame for the recent rash of microcephaly cases, rather than Zika virus.
The ban was imposed despite federal health officials in the U.S. and Brazil insisting there's no scientific basis linking pyriproxyfen and the birth defect, the
Wall Street Journal reports.
Health officials in Rio Grande do Sul suspended the use of the larvicide Pyriproxyfen to destroy mosquito eggs and larvae in the state’s drinking water supplies over the weekend.
The decision came after the Argentine group Red Universitária de Ambiente y Salud (University Network of Environment and Health), released a report linking the pesticide to spike in Brazil in recent months of suspected cases of microcephaly, in which infants are born with shrunken heads and underdeveloped brains.
Dr. Medardo Ávila Vazquez, a neonatal development specialist at the Universidad de Córdoba who belongs to the group, acknowledged that the group hasn’t done any lab studies or epidemiological research to support its assertions, but it argues that using larvicides may cause human deformities.
Dr. Ávila Vazquez said the group is calling on Brazil and other governments in the region to be extremely cautious about drawing fast conclusions about the relationship between Zika and microcephaly, and it warns that fumigating, especially by airplanes, is dangerous and won’t solve the mosquito problem.
“We think it is likely that Pyriproxyfen is the problem,” Mr. Ávila Vazquez said.
The World Health Organization has declared the Zika virus a global public-health emergency because of its possible links to microcephaly. The agency called for more research to determine whether there is a causal link between microcephaly and Zika.