The Zika virus epidemic struck Brazil at the worst possible time. The country, once considered one of the most promising emerging markets in the aftermath of the 2008 economic meltdown, is in complete political, economic, and institutional disarray. Labor Party president Dilma Rousseff and the Chamber of Deputies led by evangelical deputy Eduardo Cunha have been at war since July 2015. In December, this constant antagonism culminated in the opening of impeachment rites against Rousseff, who is the most hated president in Brazil since the return of democracy in 1985.
Her unpopularity is intimately linked to a flailing economy largely caused by the ruling Labor Party’s questionable political connections combined with its inability to promote sustainable economic growth. After a decade of unrestrained government spending and a myriad of corruption cases—most of which involved taxpayer money—Brazil closed 2015 with a nominal deficit of $150 billion (10.34 percent) of the country’s GDP. The nation’s economy contracted by 3.5 percentage points, with a 2.5 percent shrink predicted for 2016. Other telling indicators include 10 percent yearly inflation, the Brazilian real plummeting in relation to the dollar, and the loss of more than one and a half million jobs.
Next to these statistics, the epidemic that subdued Brazil this summer and its alleged connection to the development of microcephaly in almost 5,000 fetuses is just the spoiled cherry atop a rotting wedding cake. Prospects become even dimmer when considering Brazil’s perennial health crisis, which has worsened as a result of the current economic disaster. In late December, multiple state hospitals, in particular those in the state of Rio de Janeiro, refused to take in new patients because of employee salary delays and lack of medication. To make the situation even worse, the government reduced the health budget in January by $50 million, money that could have been allocated to the current emergency.
With a Zika vaccine scheduled to take at least two years to be developed, tested in animals and humans, and approved, the Brazilian government has focused on combatting the spread of the vector of the disease, the Aedes aegypti mosquito. However, the task is herculean and will likely be ineffective: the mosquito’s reproduction locus is stagnant water, which is found in flowerpots, outdoor buckets, and puddles during Brazil’s rainy summers.
Moreover, the Zika epidemic has revealed, once more, Brazil’s chronic infrastructural problem. According to the National Academy of Medicine, the mosquito’s proliferation is partially due to the Brazilian government’s failure to provide a clean water supply and garbage collection services to a significant part of the population. It is highly unlikely that these basic needs will be provided immediately, especially because of the economic crisis. It is also highly unlikely that a government that can barely keep hospitals open will be able to provide for the thousands of microcephalous children that will need lifelong aid. The situation is even more tragic because the epidemic has taken its greatest toll in the northeast, a region that has always been Brazil’s poorest and that is renowned for its lack of education, health, and infrastructure.
The government does not seem to have a long-term plan to put Brazil back on the path of growth and to provide its population with decent health and infrastructure. These three key necessities are not being dealt with because of a political conundrum that might only be resolved in the 2018 presidential election. As winter approaches, the Zika outbreak may subside, but Brazil is sure to take much longer to recover from a crisis that, much like the Aedes aegypti mosquito, seems to be everywhere.