A Georgia State University professor’s efforts to intensify ties with northeastern Brazil have a timing problem: the area is one of the hardest-hit by the mosquito-borne Zika virus now spreading throughout the hemisphere.
“We’re going to keep an eye on it,” said David Bruce, who takes students to Brazil for a management course each summer and has been recently chosen once again to lead the Georgia-Pernambuco chapter of Partners of the Americas.
The Partners of Americas network connects people and organizations across borders to address global issues. The Georgia-Pernambuco chapter forges a close relationship with the city of Recife in northeastern Brazil, where the most recent Zika outbreak has taken its heaviest toll. The chapter is working on several projects, with an emphasis on assisting youth.
Dr. Bruce’s work there overlaps with the professor’s responsibilities at Georgia State, where he is also the chair of the university’s Brazil Task Force.
“I’m sort of wearing two hats,” he said. The Task Force is part of a larger initiative under the university’s strategic plan to enhance global research and connectivity with five emerging nations.
However, the emergence of Zika in Brazil in May 2015 and warnings about its potentially rapid spread could interrupt the interactions.
“We don’t know if the Zika scare is going to affect our students or study abroad program,” Dr. Bruce said, adding that parental worries might dampen student participation. By August, he’s hopeful that health authorities will have the outbreak under control.
The recent outbreak has caused alarm as the presence of the virus in pregnant women has been linked to cases of microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with underdeveloped heads.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Zika spreads to people through mosquito bites. There is no cure, but only about 20 percent of people who get infected get sick, with relatively mild symptoms.
Health is on the agenda for the Georgia-Pernambuco chapter Dr. Bruce leads. One of its projects includes collaborative research on HIV between the former Medical College of Georgia (now part of Augusta University) and a medical school in the Brazilian state. However, the medical partners may think twice about going to Brazil at this time. Contracting the virus may be unlikely, but that’s not always the determining factor.
“The odds are pretty low, but the fear is there,” he said.
The chapter has three projects underway. As his term begins, Dr. Bruce will be working on setting up the opportunity for a state legislator from Pernambuco to visit the Georgia General Assembly and also working with iEARN, an international education and resource network.
Dr. Bruce said that he is looking to take a cue from the Washington office of Partners of the Americas to see what other initiatives the Georgia chapter can work on. The Georgia chapter also produces their own ideas with the input of their Pernambuco counterparts.
In the meantime, as an ongoing collaboration that has spanned nearly 50 years, work through the chapter will continue to bring people from Georgia and Brazil together in education, business, medicine and government. Dr. Bruce was president of the chapter for two previous terms in the 1990s.
For more on Dr. Bruce and his work in Brazil beyond, click here.
For more information on the Georgia-Pernambuco chapter of the Partners of the Americas, visit http://georgiapartners.com.
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