MIAMI—As carnival revelers from Haiti to Brazil packed the streets for pre-Lenten extravaganzas this week, raising fears about the transmission of the Zika virus, A&E Networks Latin America decided to put off employee travel in the Americas.
“Travel is part of our lives and it’s the way we become part of our viewers’ lives, but we just have to be smart about it,” said Cesar Sabroso, senior vice president of marketing for the Coral Gables-based company, which brings viewers across Latin America and Brazil channels such as A&E, History, H2 and Lifetime.
So A&E is advising traveling employees to stock up on insect repellant and to avoid densely populated areas and waterfront locations where the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads Zika, might lurk. Keeping up with the latest health advisories on Zika also has become part of the corporate routine.
“We’re traveling as often as always. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last time, that we’ve had to deal with mosquito-borne diseases,” Sabroso said. But he added the company wants to be responsible, so instead of traveling in the Americas during carnival week, employees have been using Skype and the telephone to keep in touch.
South Florida is home to more than 1,400 multinationals, with employees who travel frequently through the Americas—including the 27 South American, Central American and Caribbean nations and territories where Zika is locally transmitted. South Florida also is a hub for regional travel and cargo shipments, and airlines and logistics companies, such as UPS and DHL have had to respond to the new reality of Zika.
So far, 18 cases of Zika have been reported in Florida. All the cases have been associated with travel abroad, rather than locally acquired.
Symptoms are generally mild—fever, rash, joint pain and pink eye – but the virus also has been linked to microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads and often have smaller brains that might not develop normally. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention advises pregnant women to consider postponing travel to areas of active Zika transmission. Because there is no medicine or vaccine to prevent the disease, women in Zika areas also are advised to avoid becoming pregnant.
CDC Director Thomas Frieden said in testimony before Congress on Wednesday that four cases in Brazil—two miscarried fetuses and two babies who died within 24 hours after birth—provided “the strongest evidence to date that Zika is the cause of microcephaly.”
In these cases, the CDC, working with Brazilian scientists, tested the brain tissue and identified the DNA of the Zika virus.
Airlines are responding to the threat by offering refunds to pregnant travelers and airports are posting, or planning to post, information on the virus. The White House also is posting news on its Zika page.