The Lancet
Mar 05, 2016 Volume 387 Number 10022 p917-1026 e22
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current

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Editorial
Health—an explicit human right
The Lancet
Summary
“The past year severely tested the international system’s capacity to respond to crises and mass forced displacements of people, and found it woefully inadequate.” So begins Amnesty International’s annual report for 2015, The state of the world’s human rights, published last week. Set against the backdrop of unprecedented and worldwide migration, recurring themes include access to health services, the effects of conflict on health, women and children’s health, sexual rights, and the denial of health care in prisons.

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Comment
Zika virus and microcephaly in Brazil: a scientific agenda
Mauricio L Barreto, Manoel Barral-Netto, Rodrigo Stabeli, Naomar Almeida-Filho, Pedro F C Vasconcelos, Mauro Teixeira, Paulo Buss, Paulo E Gadelha
Summary
Since 1981, the Brazilian population has had dengue fever epidemics and all control efforts have been unsuccessful.1 In 2014, chikungunya fever was reported for the first time in the country.2 In 2015, the occurrence of Zika virus was also reported,3 along with an increase of microcephaly and brain damage in newborn babies.4,5 The mosquito Aedes aegypti is the most conventional vector of these three viral infections and is widely disseminated in a great part of urban Brazil. Brazilian public health authorities declared a National Public Health Emergency on Nov 11, 2015, and intensified the vector control campaign to tackle the epidemic.