Fearing the effects of the Zika virus on their unborn children, more and more pregnant women in Latin America are seeking abortion pills online from a non-profit aid agency, according to a study from the New England Journal of Medicine released Wednesday.
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The new research is the first measure of the response of pregnant women to Zika warnings in countries where abortion is limited or banned. First detected in Brazil last year, the Pan American Health Organization has since issued an alert for the mosquito-borne virus across Latin America.
El Salvador has gone so far as to advise women to avoid pregnancy altogether. The World Health Organization also recently advised couples living in areas with Zika transmission to consider delaying pregnancy.
"When you issue these kinds of advisories, but you uncouple them from pathways to safe and legal care, you create a really difficult situation for women," said co-author Dr. Abigail Aiken, from the University of Texas.
The study analyzed requests for abortion services from Women on Web, a nonprofit that provides access to the abortion medications and online consultations to women in countries where legal abortion is limited. The group offers the pills in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy to induce a miscarriage.
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The study found statistically significant increases—from 36 to 108 percent—in abortion drug requests in seven out of eight countries where Zika is circulating, abortion is limited and the country had warned about the risk of Zika in pregnancy.
Jamaica, was the only country in this group not to see a major increase.
Abortion pills from Women on Web are only offered in the first trimester of pregnancy, which is often too early to confirm whether a fetus has been affected by Zika. Researchers have said signs of microcephaly, a rare birth defect that can lead to severe developmental problems, may not appear until well into the second trimester.
The current Zika outbreak has been linked to more than 1,400 cases of the birth defect, which manifests itself in children being born with smaller heads.