Written by Cate Cadell, CNN
“The problem is that all the revellers arrive right at the worst possible time,” one mayor said.
But if this was the story of a single unnamed mayor in São Paulo’s “slums,” it would hardly put one into a good mood.
That’s because the early morning sounds of visitors on bus loads of either poverty-stricken young women or more middle-class men arrived just as the city’s dreaded, often deadly, mosquito-borne Zika virus outbreak entered its second full year.
Although the last known local transmission — in northeastern city Salvador — was in July 2016, São Paulo’s Mayor João Doria — who has led his city of 16 million into the company of San Francisco as the global cities with the largest Zika transmission — has been publicizing the risk of getting bitten.
“We really worry about the disease, especially since in the next year more than 100,000 tourists are expected to arrive from abroad,” Doria told CNN. He added that his office has also been in contact with the Brazilian consulates to advise potential tourists to avoid outdoor activities during the peak of the 2014-2018 Carnival season.
With the past year of new preventative measures already underway, Zika seems to be going down in the must-travel risk list of Carnival enthusiasts.
Much to the dismay of many!