Pilar Goncalves, 22, with her husband, was told she had Zika virus, which health authorities suspect may be linked to a rare birth defect. After a blood test, she was "desperately relieved" to be given the all-clear.
Brazil&apos;s Ministry of Health made an unprecedented announcement this month: It told women in the northeast of the country not to get pregnant for the foreseeable future.
And it&apos;s all because of a mosquito — the Aedes aegypti species, which can spread a variety of diseases, including Zika virus. Health experts in Brazil are concerned that the virus, whose symptoms are typically a low-grade fever and bright red rash, might be having a devastating impact on newborns.
"Normally in a year you&apos;d have maybe three or four cases," he says by phone from his home city of Natal in Brazil&apos;s north. "In 24 hours when we asked around, there had been 11 in the city. And that was a shocking enough number that we realized something very serious was happening."
It&apos;s not clear when Zika arrived in Brazil, though some doctors speculate it could have come with African visitors during the World Cup.
Initially, it wasn&apos;t a concern. Normally, Zika is not a serious infection, unlike malaria and dengue, for example. People are ill for a few days and generally recover.
Brazil&apos;s Ministry of Health says there is now a suspected link between Zika and the cases of microcephaly in infants.
"Everyone involved in this is extremely concerned about what could happen," says Luz. "We don&apos;t yet understand this illness."
The Health Ministry is now working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an arm of the World Health Organization to figure out what is going on. In the meantime, six states in Brazil have announced a state of emergency. There are 1,761 cases of microcephaly; many more are expected as Brazil&apos;s Health Ministry says more than 1 million people could have contracted the virus.
"It&apos;s an enormous concern because of the children," she said.
But experts say the mosquito came back after those measures were relaxed. These days it&apos;s everywhere. Beyond Zika, Brazil is actually suffering a dengue epidemic right now as well, with over 1.5 million cases in the country.
But it&apos;s not clear why Zika virus could be having this effect on fetuses.
"It&apos;s a mystery for everyone. We only just started looking into this a month ago," says Denise Valle, a researcher and entomologist at Fundacao Oswaldo Cruz, a leading scientific research center in Rio de Janeiro, who studies the Aedes aegypti.
"I&apos;ve been an infection specialist for more than 40 years and I&apos;ve never been through such a period of stress. If we don&apos;t get a handle on this, we are going to have a generation of damaged babies," she warns.