Fears over complications relating to the Zika virus are driving more pregnant women in Latin America to seek abortions, new research suggests. In many of these countries, abortion is either illegal or highly restricted, leaving pregnant women with few options and potentially driving them to use unsafe methods, experts today warned.
Many are seeking to access abortion drugs without medical supervision, while others are being driven to visit underground providers, the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine notes.
In November last year, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) issued an alert about the Zika virus in Latin America. In February, such was the international concern, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak sweeping through South and Central America a public health emergency of international concern. Although the virus, spread by mosquitoes, causes only mild symptoms, it can have serious complications particularly for unborn babies.
A growing body of scientific evidence has linked the virus to the severe birth defect microcephaly, which causes babies to be born with smaller than normal size heads and often brain damage.
Furthermore, research has found links to eye and hearing defects in babies, and Guillain-Barré syndrome, where the body's immune system attacks the nervous system, often resulting in temporary paralysis.
Following the PAHO alert, several countries issued health advisory warnings, including urging women to avoid pregnancy. For several years, one option for women seeking an abortion in Latin America has been Women on Web, a non-profit organisation that provides medical abortion outside the formal healthcare setting through online telemedicine, in countries where safe abortion is not universally available.
A team of researchers from the US and UK analysed data on requests for abortion through the website between January 1, 2010 and March 2, 2016 in 19 Latin-American countries, assessing whether requests for abortion increased beyond expected trends following the PAHO alert. The researchers found that in almost all of the countries that had issued health warnings about Zika and had legal restrictions on abortions, the number of requests for abortion through Women on Web rose significantly - effectively doubling in Brazil, Ecuador and Venezuala, and increasing by over a third in most of the other countries.
The study showed Brazil had the highest increase in demand for abortion, a 108 per cent rise, followed by Ecuador (107.7 per cent) and Venezuela (93.3 per cent).
In countries that had issued no health warnings, there was no statistically-significant increase.
Dr Abigail Aiken an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said: 'Accurate data on the choices pregnant women make in Latin America is hard to obtain.
'If anything, our approach may underestimate the impact of health warning on requests for abortion, as many women may have used an unsafe method or visited local underground providers.'
Dr Catherine Aiken from the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of Cambridge added: 'The World Health Organization predicts as many as four million Zika cases across the Americas over the next year, and the virus will inevitably spread to other countries.
'It isn't enough for health officials just to warn women about the risks associated Zika - they must also make efforts to ensure that women are offered safe, legal, and accessible reproductive choices.'
Source: DailyMail
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