ABSTRACT
Evaluating the effectiveness of the response to Zika in the Americas, as a case study in epidemic control, is more difficult than one would first assume. The Zika epidemic also showed that health communication units across most of the Latin America and the Caribbean region, at the level of Ministry of Health, were overly technical, hierarchical and under-funded, and in a general state of disrepair. Zika’s social dimensions are different, entangled in human–mosquito–ecological relationships. Zika’s social dimensions not only involve mosquitoes but also the more intimate and private spaces of human sexuality and reproduction, as well as the broader social policies and macroeconomic trends that influence people’s lives. Social inequalities, however, do shape the lack of access to health care, employment and political leverage that prevent improvements in basic living conditions. In various ways and at different levels, in sexual and reproductive health, albeit interwoven into social and cultural norms, and in the response and recovery to Zika.
