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The Washington vaccination ploy - Puerto Rico and the Zika quandary

COMMENT Should you fear receiving the needle from a stranger? Yes. Should you fear receiving it from a person you know all too well as a historical abuser? Even more so. Empires do it, states do it, and even local agencies do it. Let’s all, as it were, vaccinate for all in this perverted paraphrasing of the Cole Porter song, the assumption that the medical facility cures, and the giver and administrator knows all.

The motivation here in Puerto Rico, benighted by its US territorial status, has become more acute given the issue of the Zika virus, the latest pandemic thrust that has made health authorities nervous, and populations frantic. Having spread from Brazil, Latin America is bracing for a surge in infections, courtesy of the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

On Aug 1, it was reported that some 5,500 confirmed infections existed in the territory, though such “actual numbers are far greater”. Up to 50 pregnant women a day may be contracting the virus, though even that number is sketchy.

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