Tag Archives: Brazil

Brazil’s worst-ever recession likely extended into fourth quarter

Shoppers walk in a mall in Refice, northeast Brazil, May 5, 2010. REUTERS/Bruno Domingos

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s economy probably contracted for an eighth straight quarter at the end of 2016, offering further proof that Latin America’s largest economy has been in its worst recession ever, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.

Gross domestic product probably shrank 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter from the third after seasonal adjustments, according to the median forecast of 16 economists. Brazil’s GDP contracted 0.8 percent in the third quarter.

Brazil’s economy is expected to have contracted 3.5 percent in 2016, after a decline of 3.8 percent in 2015. Brazil has never experienced such a long and deep period of recession, at least since records began more than a century ago.

The recession has left nearly 13 million people unemployed and caused a record number of bankruptcy filings. It also contributed to the ousting of former President Dilma Rousseff last year and to the low approval ratings of her successor, President Michel Temer.

The fourth-quarter GDP numbers will be released on March 7.

Leading indicators have suggested the economy is finally emerging out of recession in the first quarter of 2017, Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles told Reuters earlier this week. The central bank has been cutting interest rates at a rapid pace as inflation falls, which is expected to help boost growth.

The recovery, however, is expected to be very slow. The median expectation of economists in a weekly central bank survey projected a GDP expansion of 0.5 percent in 2017.

Although this recession has been the deepest in Brazil’s history, it has not been as dramatic as other crises in the country’s turbulent economic past. Previous downturns were often marked by debt crises, capital flights, hyperinflation and mass migration, none of which happened during the current recession.

Brazil’s economy probably shrank 2.2 percent in the fourth quarter from a year before, according to the poll.

(Reporting by Silvio Cascione; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Brazil set to keep aggressive pace of rate cuts to salvage economy

A view of Brazil's Central Bank in Brasilia, Brazil, September 15, 2016. Picture taken September 15, 2016. REUTERS/Adriano Machado

By Alonso Soto

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s central bank will likely maintain its aggressive pace of interest rate cuts on Wednesday despite some calls to further step up monetary easing to rescue an economy mired in recession.

The bank’s 9-member monetary policy committee, known as Copom, will likely cut its benchmark Selic rate <BRCBMP=ECI> by 75 basis points to 12.25 percent, according to all but one of the 54 economist surveyed by Reuters last week.

Unions and business groups have demanded a cut of 100 basis points to reduce some of the world’s highest borrowing costs, which they say could undermine a still feeble recovery.

A rapid drop in inflation, which could end the year below the 4.5 percent official target, has strengthened the case for a bolder rate cut after the bank surprised markets by cutting more than expected at its last meeting.

The recent appreciation of the real currency <BRBY> has analysts betting on more aggressive rate cuts ahead.

“We think there is a growing case for a bolder cut of 100 basis points– if not now, then at the next policy meeting,” economists with BNP Paribas wrote in a note to clients.

Central bank chief Ilan Goldfajn has signaled policymakers would maintain the current pace of rate cuts, but that future monetary easing would hinge on the approval of austerity reforms to ease inflationary pressures.

Brazil’s recession, the worst in its history, has left millions unemployed and bankrupted hundreds of companies, raising pressure on Goldfajn to lower rates.

Facing a grueling fiscal crisis President Michel Temer is relying on falling interest rates to exit a recession that threatens to stretch into a third year.

However, the sharp drop in inflation has sparked a debate inside his administration over whether the government’s 2019 inflation target, decided in June, should be set at a lower level. That could slow the pace of monetary easing.

Brazil introduced an inflation rate target in 1999. The current 4.5 percent goal was first adopted for 2005, originally with a tolerance margin of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. In 2015, the government narrowed the range to plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.

(Reporting by Alonso Soto; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Brazil races against time to save drought-hit city, dying crops

cracked ground in Brazil

By Anthony Boadle

CAMPINA GRANDE, Brazil (Reuters) – The shrunken carcasses of cows lie in scorched fields outside the city of Campina Grande in northeast Brazil, and hungry goats search for food on the cracked-earth floor of the Boqueirao reservoir that serves the desperate town.

After five years of drought, farmer Edivaldo Brito says he cannot remember when the Boqueirão reservoir was last full. But he has never seen it this empty.

“We’ve lost everything: bananas, beans, potatoes,” Brito said. “We have to walk 3 kilometers just to wash clothes.”

Brazil’s arid northeast is weathering its worst drought on record and Campina Grande, which has 400,000 residents that depend on the reservoir, is running out of water.

After two years of rationing, residents complain that water from the reservoir is dirty, smelly and undrinkable. Those who can afford to do so buy bottled water to cook, wash their teeth with, and even to give their pets.

The reservoir is down to 4 percent of capacity and rainfall is expected to be sparse this year.

“If it does not fill up, the city’s water system will collapse by mid-year,” says Janiro Costa Rêgo, an expert on water resources and hydraulics professor at Campina Grande’s federal university. “It would be a holocaust. You would have to evacuate the city.”

Brazil’s government says help is on the way.

REROUTING THE RIVER

After decades of promises and years of delays, the government says the rerouting of Brazil’s longest river, the São Francisco, will soon relieve Campina Grande and desperate farmers in four parched northeastern states.

Water will be pumped over hills and through 400 kilometers of canals into dry river basins in Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, and Paraíba, the small state of which Campina Grande is the second-biggest city.

Begun in 2005 by leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the project has been delayed by political squabbles, corruption and cost-overruns of billions of dollars.

Brazil’s ongoing recession, which economists calculate has shrunk the economy of the impoverished northeast by over four percent during each of the past two years, made things even worse.

Now, President Michel Temer is speeding up completion of the project, perhaps his best opportunity to boost support for his unpopular government in a region long-dominated by native-son Lula and his leftist Workers Party.

In early March, Temer plans to open a canal that will feed Campina Grande’s reservoir at the town of Monteiro. The water will still take weeks to flow down the dry bed of the Paraíba river to Boqueirão.

With the quality of water in Campina Grande dropping by the day, it is a race against time.

Professor Costa Rêgo says the reservoir water will become untreatable by March and could harm residents who cannot afford bottled water.

Helder Barbalho, Temer’s minister in charge of the project, says the government is confident the water will arrive on schedule.

“We have to deliver the water by April at all costs,” he said.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change has worsened the droughts in Brazil’s northeast over the last 30 years, according to Eduardo Martins, head of Funceme, Ceará state’s meteorological agency.

Rainfall has decreased and temperatures have risen, increasing demand for agricultural irrigation just as water supplies fell and evaporation accelerated.

Costa Rêgo blames lack of planning by Brazil’s governments for persistent and repeated water crises, shocking for a country that boasts the biggest fresh water reserves on the planet.

The reservoir supplying São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and a metropolitan region of 20 million people, nearly dried up in 2015. The capital, Brasilia, resorted to rationing this year.

In Fortaleza, capital of Ceará and the northeast’s second largest city, the vital Castanhão reservoir is down to 5 percent of its capacity.

While that city will also get water from the São Francisco project, it will not arrive until at least year-end because contractor Mendes Junior abandoned work after being implicated in a major corruption scandal.

“Water from the São Francisco river is vital,” Ceará Governor Camilo Santana told Reuters. He said the reservoir can supply Ceará only until August.

After that, the state must use emergency wells and a mandatory 20 percent reduction in consumption to keep Fortaleza taps running until water arrives.

RATIONING

Ceará has had to cut back on irrigation, hurting flower and melon exporters, cattle ranchers and dairy farmers. They stand to flourish when the transfer comes through, but quenching the thirst of the cities will take priority.

In Campina Grande, a textile center, companies including industry leaders Coteminas and Alpargatas have curtailed expansion plans and drastically cut back consumption by recycling the water they use.

There, too, new water will first go towards solving the crisis in Campina Grande and surrounding towns. Only then will officials think about agriculture.

“First we have to satisfy the thirst of urban consumers. Only then can we think of producing wealth,” said Joao Fernandes da Silva, the top water management official in Paraíba.

Rationing has particularly hurt poorer urban families. Many have no running water or water tanks and instead store water in plastic bottles.

For those who have waited decades for the São Francisco transfer, they will believe it only when they see the water flow.

Brito said he and his neighbors survive on the social programs that were the hallmark of Lula and his Workers Party administration. Though tainted by corruption allegations, Lula remains Brazil’s most popular politician ahead of presidential elections next year.

“Without the Bolsa Familia program, we would be dying of hunger,” said Brito, who believes shortages could persist even after the river transfer. “It’s political season again, so they promise us water, just for our votes.”

(Additional reporting by Ueslei Marcelino and Sergio Queiroz; Editing by Paulo Prada, Daniel Flynn and Bernadette Baum)

Yellow fever kills 600 monkeys in Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest

woman works on yellow fever vaccine

By Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA (Reuters) – An outbreak of yellow fever has claimed the lives of more than 600 monkeys and dozens of humans in Brazil’s Atlantic rainforest region, threatening the survival of rare South American primates, a zoologist said on Wednesday.

The monkeys, mostly brown howlers and masked titis, are falling out of trees and dying on the ground in the forests of Espirito Santo state in Brazil’s southeast.

“The number of dead monkeys increases every day,” said Sergio Lucena, he said of the impact of the disease’s spread in his state, “We now know that the rare buffy-headed marmoset is also threatened by the yellow fever virus and dying.”

The howler’s sounds closely resemble grunts or barks. It was the silence that fell on the forests that first alerted farmers that something was amiss, sparking specialists to investigate.

The masked titi is considered as “vulnerable” by the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature, which has placed it on its Red List of Threatened Species.

No evidence has so far surfaced of the affliction felling woolly spider monkeys, considered one of the world’s most endangered by the IUCN.

WORST YELLOW FEVER OUTBREAK IN DECADES

Brazil is suffering the worst yellow fever outbreak in decades that has killed at least 69 humans, nearly all in central state of Minas Gerais, where the problems began.

Most people recover from yellow fever after the first phase of infection, which usually involves fever, headache, shivers, loss of appetite and nausea or vomiting, according to the World Health Organization.

Millions of Brazilians have been vaccinated as health authorities scramble to prevent the outbreak from turning into an epidemic. There is no such protection available for monkeys.

Yellow fever is a viral disease found in tropical regions of Africa and the Americas that mainly affects humans and monkeys and is transmitted by the same type of mosquito that spreads dengue and the Zika virus.

Hundreds of thousands of people died from it in the Americas before a vaccine was developed in 1938.

Brazil’s federal health officials are investigating if the latest outbreak is linked to a tailings dam collapse last year in Minas Gerais at the Samarco iron ore mine co-owned by BHP
Billiton and Vale SA.

The dam accident, which polluted the Rio Doce river, is regarded as the country’s worst environmental disaster.

Some scientists have said that calamity may have made the monkeys more susceptible to contracting yellow fever by decimating their habitat and food supplies.

Deep in the jungle, Brazil struggles to battle drug trade

Brazil army soldiers on border with Colombia to combat drug trade

By Alonso Soto

VILA BITTENCOURT, Brazil (Reuters) – In an isolated army outpost deep in the Amazon jungle, Felipe Castro leads 70 soldiers on the frontline of Brazil’s fight against its biggest security threat: the drug trade.

Castro’s platoon patrols a 250 km (155 miles) stretch of the border with the world’s top cocaine producer Colombia in a bid to stem the flow of illegal drugs and arms that is fuelling a war between criminal gangs in Brazil.

“It’s a difficult job but not impossible,” said the gaunt 29-year-old, his face covered in green and black camouflage.

Watching from the bank of the murky Japura river, Castro directs his men as they use a metal speedboat to practise intercepting drug shipments on its fast-moving waters.

The river marks only part of Brazil’s porous border that stretches for nearly 10,000 kms, three times the U.S.-Mexico frontier.

After years of fragile truce, Brazil’s drug gangs have launched a battle for control of lucrative cross-border smuggling routes that has spilled into the country’s gang-controlled jails, sparking the bloodiest prison riots in decades.

More than 130 inmates have been killed so far this year.

In the vast state of Amazonas, the North Family gang has for years dominated the smuggling of cocaine that is shipped to Europe or sold in Brazil’s inner cities in a business believed to be worth $4.5 billion a year.

Brazil is the world’s biggest consumer of cocaine after the United States, according to United Nations data.

Machete-wielding North Family gangs decapitated dozens of inmates of the rival First Capital Command (PCC) in a New Year’s prison massacre that has sparked revenge killings across penitentiaries in northern Brazil.

President Michel Temer’s government is worried the prison violence could spill onto the streets of major cities such as economic hub Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, a major tourist destination.

Temer has vowed to improve military surveillance along the border, but senior commanders acknowledge drugs and arms will continue to flow in.

“Not even the United States has been able to stop drug trafficking along its border with Mexico,” said General Altair Polsin, head of the army’s ground operations command. “You have to tackle consumption to put an end to this.”

The military plans to increase its patrols on the Solimoes River, one of the main smuggling routes, and share intelligence with officials in neighboring Colombia and Peru.

Officers are putting their hopes in a technology upgrade to use infrared sensors and drones for border surveillance.

For this year, Brazil plans to nearly double its budget to about half a billion reais to finance a border technology program known as SISFRON, according to Defense Minister Raul Jungmann.

Updated technology is crucial for the 1,500 soldiers in the 24 garrisons posted along the Amazon border who divide their time searching for drugs with raids on illegal miners, loggers and hunters.

Other Brazilian security agencies fighting drugs and arms trafficking in this isolated swath of the jungle are also stretched.

Amazonas needs an extra 7,000 civil and military police to keep up with the increase in drug activity, according an internal report by the state security secretary.

“We are 30 officers overseeing an area the size of France,” said Marcos Vinicius Menezes, the federal police chief in Tabatinga, a city washed by the Solimoes that borders Colombia and Peru.

“If fighting the drug trade wasn’t enough, we also have to look after the world’s biggest tropical forest.”

(Editing by Daniel Flynn)

Brazil to transfer gang leaders after prison massacre

Relatives of prisoners react near riot police at a checkpoint close to the prison where around 60 people were killed in a prison riot in the Amazon jungle city of Manaus, Brazil

By Ueslei Marcelino

MANAUS, Brazil (Reuters) – The Brazilian government will relocate gang leaders to other federal penitentiaries after the country’s deadliest prison massacre in decades left 56 inmates dead in a scene of mutilated and burned bodies this week, officials said on Tuesday.

Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes said authorities would move quickly to identify and transfer the gang bosses out of the crowded jail in the remote jungle state of Amazonas where the riot occurred on Monday.

A local drug gang known as North Family, which controls the prison complex in the city of Manaus, attacked inmates from a rival criminal group that encroached on its turf, exchanging fire with police and taking a dozen prison guards hostage, officials said.

Machete-wielding gangs decapitated inmates and threw their bodies over a wall of the Anisio Jobim prison, which houses more than three times as many prisoners as it was built for in 1982.

The riot was the deadliest since the 1992 rebellion at the Carandiru prison in Sao Paulo state in which 111 inmates were killed.

Police hunted for more than 100 inmates who escaped from the prison during the riot, which lasted about 17 hours.

An escalating war for control of the lucrative drug trade between rival gangs has fueled more violence in recent months in Brazil’s overcrowded and understaffed prisons, home to an estimated 600,000 prisoners.

Amazonas state authorities will move dozens of inmates from other prisons to an abandoned jail in Manaus to protect them from rival gangs amid fear that Monday’s massacre could lead to retaliation.

Four inmates were found dead in another prison in the rural area of Manaus on Monday. State officials were not able to say whether there had been a riot there.

(Writing by Alonso Soto; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Soccer plane in Colombia crash was running out of fuel

Rescue crews work at the wreckage of a plane that crashed into the Colombian jungle with Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense onboard near Medellin, Colombia,

By Julia Symmes Cobb and Brad Haynes

LA UNION, Colombia/CHAPECO, Brazil (Reuters) – The pilot of a LAMIA Airlines plane that crashed in Colombia, virtually wiping out a Brazilian soccer team, had radioed that he was running out of fuel and needed to make an emergency landing, according to the co-pilot of another plane in the area.

The crash on Monday night killed 71 people. Six survived, including just three members of the Chapecoense soccer squad en route to the biggest game in their history, the Copa Sudamericana final.

Avianca co-pilot Juan Sebastian Upegui said in a chat message with friends that the LAMIA pilot told the control tower at the airport in Medellin that he was in trouble.

Priority had already been given to a plane from airline VivaColombia, which had also reported problems, Upegui said. Reuters confirmed the audio message, which local media played on Wednesday, was from Upegui.

After reporting being low on fuel, the LAMIA pilot then said he was experiencing electrical difficulties before the radio went silent.

“Mayday mayday … Help us get to the runway … Help, help,” Upegui described the pilot as saying. “Then it ended … We all started to cry.”

Relatives of Brazilian journalist Guilherme Marques, who died in a plane accident that crashed into Colombian jungle with Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense onboard near Medellin, mourn during a mass

Relatives of Brazilian journalist Guilherme Marques, who died in a plane accident that crashed into Colombian jungle with Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense onboard near Medellin, mourn during a mass in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares

The BAe 146, made by BAE Systems Plc, slammed into a mountainside. Besides the three players, a journalist and two crew members survived.

One survivor, Bolivian flight technician Erwin Tumiri, said he only saved himself by strict adherence to security procedure, while others panicked.

“Many passengers got up from their seats and started yelling,” he told Colombia’s Radio Caracol. “I put the bag between my legs and went into the fetal position as recommended.”

Bolivian flight attendant Ximena Suarez, another survivor, said the lights went out less than a minute before the plane slammed into the mountain, according to Colombian officials in Medellin.

Of the players, goalkeeper Jackson Follmann was recovering from the amputation of his right leg, doctors said.

Another player, defender Helio Neto, remained in intensive care with severe trauma to his skull, thorax and lungs.

Fellow defender Alan Ruschel had spine surgery.

Suarez and Tumiri were shaken and bruised but not in critical condition, medical staff said, while journalist Rafael Valmorbida was in intensive care for multiple rib fractures that partly collapsed a lung.

Investigators from Brazil have joined Colombian counterparts to check two black boxes from the crash site on a muddy hillside in wooded highlands near the town of La Union.

Bolivia, where LAMIA is based, and the United Kingdom also sent experts to help the probe.

HOMAGES PLANNED

The plane “came over my house, but there was no noise,” said Nancy Munoz, 35, who grows strawberries in the area. “The engine must have gone.”

By Wednesday morning, rescuers had recovered all of the bodies, which were to be sent to Brazil and Bolivia. All of the crew members were Bolivian.

A Colombian air force helicopter retrieves the bodies of victims from the wreckage of a plane that crashed into the Colombian jungle with Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense onboard near Medellin, Colombia, November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

A Colombian air force helicopter retrieves the bodies of victims from the wreckage of a plane that crashed into the Colombian jungle with Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense onboard near Medellin, Colombia, November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

Forty-five of the bodies have been identified, Colombian officials said.

Soccer-mad Brazil declared three days of mourning.

It was a bitter twist to a fairy-tale story for Chapecoense. Since 2009, the team rose from Brazil’s fourth to top division and was about to play the biggest match in its history in the first leg of the regional cup final in Medellin.

Global soccer greats from Lionel Messi to Pele sent condolences.

In the small city of Chapecó in remote southern Brazil, black and green ribbons were draped on fences, balconies and restaurant tables. Schools canceled classes, and businesses closed.

“It’s a miracle,” Flavio Ruschel, the father of Alan Ruschel, told Globo News as he prepared to fly to Colombia. “I don’t think I’ll be able to speak, just hug him and cry a lot.”

Black banners hung from a cathedral downtown and wrapped around a 14-meter statue of one of the town’s founding explorers.

Outside the team’s Conda stadium, a group of hardcore fans put up a tent and promised to keep vigil until the bodies of their idols returned to the city.

“We were there for them in victory, and we’re here for them in tragedy, rain or shine,” said fan Caua Regis. “Like family.”

The club is planning an open wake at their stadium, a city official said.

A homage was also planned for later on Wednesday at the stadium in Medellin of Atletico Nacional, which had been due to play Chapecoense in the regional final in the evening.

The Colombian team wants the trophy to be given to Chapecoense in honor of the dead.

“As far as we are concerned,” the team said, “Chapecoense will forever be the champions of the Copa Sudamericana Cup 2016.”

(Writing by Helen Murphy and Andrew Cawthorne; Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle and Daniel Flynn in Brazil; Editing by Kieran Murray and Lisa Von Ahn)

Plane with Brazil’s soccer team crashes in Colombia, 75 dead

Wreckage from a plane that crashed into Colombian jungle with Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense, is seen near Medellin, Colombia,

By Fredy Builes and Paolo Whitaker

LA UNION, Colombia/ CHAPECO, Brazil (Reuters) – A charter plane carrying Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense to the biggest game in its history crashed in the Colombian mountains after an electrical fault, killing 75 people on board, authorities said on Tuesday.

Colombia’s worst air disaster in two decades came as the team from Brazil’s top soccer league flew to face Atletico Nacional of Medellin in the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana final, South America’s equivalent of the Europa League.

The plane, en route from Bolivia where the team had a stopover, went down about 10:15 p.m. on Monday night with 72 passengers and a crew of nine on board.

It had reported electrical problems and declared an emergency minutes earlier as it neared its destination, Medellin airport officials said.

At the crash scene near the town of La Union in wooded highlands outside Medellin, dozens of bodies were laid out and covered with sheets around the wreckage of the BAe 146.

The plane was shattered against a mountainside with the tail end virtually disintegrated. Rain hampered dozens of rescuers as they combed the muddy and forested area.

 

Rescue crew work in the wreckage from a plane that crashed into Colombian jungle with Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense near Medellin, Colombia,

Rescue crew work in the wreckage from a plane that crashed into Colombian jungle with Brazilian soccer team Chapecoense near Medellin, Colombia, November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Fredy Builes

Colombia’s civil aviation head, Alfredo Bocanegra, said there were 75 confirmed fatalities, with six injured survivors. They were listed as three players, a journalist and two members of the flight crew. Two of the six were in grave condition.

It was the first time Chapecoense, a small club from the southern Brazilian town of Chapeco, had reached the final of a major South American club competition.

Brazilian news organizations said 21 journalists had been on board the plane to cover the match.

Global soccer was stunned, matches were canceled around South America, and Brazil declared three days of mourning.

“I express my solidarity in this sad hour during which tragedy has beset dozens of Brazilian families,” President Michel Temer said.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos tweeted his condolences. “Solidarity with the families of the victims and Brazil,” he said.

Colombia’s civil aviation authority named the survivors as players Alan Ruschel, Jackson Follmann and Hélio Neto; journalist Rafael Valmorbida; air stewardess Ximena Suarez and flight technician Erwin Tumiri.

Flight tracking service Flightradar24 said on Twitter the last signal from flight 2933 was received when it was at 15,500 feet (4,724 m), about 30 km (18.64 miles) from its destination, which sits at an altitude of 7,000 feet (2133 m).

The BAe 146 was produced by a company that is now part of the UK’s BAE Systems

The team flew Brazilian airline Gol to Santa Cruz in Bolivia and then took a flight from there to Medellin on the plane run by a Bolivian-based, Venezuelan-owned company called LaMia.

GLOBAL SOCCER WORLD SHAKEN

The crash evoked memories of a series of soccer air disasters in the 20th century, including the Munich crash in 1958 that killed 23 people, including eight Manchester United players, journalists and traveling officials.

World governing body FIFA said on Twitter its “thoughts were with the victims, their families, fans of Chapecoense and media organizations in Brazil on this tragic day.”

Chapecoense qualified for the biggest game in its history after overcoming the Argentine club San Lorenzo in the semi-final on away goals following a 1-1 draw in Buenos Aires and 0-0 draw at home.

They were underdogs for the match against a club going for a rare double after winning the Copa Libertadores in July.

Fans of Chapecoense soccer team are pictured in front of the Arena Conda stadium in Chapeco, Brazil,

Fans of Chapecoense soccer team are pictured in front of the Arena Conda stadium in Chapeco, Brazil, November 29, 2016. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker

Chapecoense was the 21st biggest club in Brazil in terms of revenue in 2015, bringing in 46 million reais ($13.5 million), according to a list by Brazilian bank Itau BBA.

The club has built its success on a frugal spending policy that eschewed big money signings and concentrated on blending young talent and experienced journeymen.

“They were the hope of our city,” said Jean Panegalli, 17, a student in Chapeco. “They played for love of the shirt and not for money. They played with the commitment that only those who have lived here know.

“They were ferocious.”

Several hundred dejected fans gathered around the team’s Conda stadium in Chapeco, many of them wearing Chapecoense’s green strip. At least one young fan burst into tears

“It is still hard to believe what has happened to the Chapecoense team just when it was on the rise,” said Agenor Danieli, a 64-year-old pensioner in the agricultural town of around 200,000 people in Santa Catarina state.

“We are in crisis. The town has come to a stop. Companies are giving people the day off so they can come here to the stadium. We need to pray. It still doesn’t feel real.”

Chapecoense’s best-known player was Cleber Santana, a midfielder whose best years were spent in Spain with Atletico Madrid and Mallorca. Coach Caio Junior also was experienced, having managed at some of Brazil’s biggest clubs, Botafogo, Flamengo and Palmeiras among them.

The crash prompted an outpouring of solidarity and grief on social media from the soccer community, with Brazilian top flight teams Flamengo and Santos tweeting messages of support.

Porto goalkeeper Iker Casillas tweeted: “My condolences for the plane accident that carried @ChapecoenseReal. Tough moment for football. Good luck and stay strong!”

The South American football federation suspended all games and other activities following the crash.

It was Colombia’s worst air accident since more than 160 people on an American Airlines plane died in 1995 in a mountainous zone near Cali.

($1=3.40 reais)

(Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Andrew Cawthorne; Additional reporting by Helen Murphy, Julia Symmes Cobb and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota; Andrew Downie, Anthony Boadle and Dan Flynn in Brazil, Girish Gupta in Caracas; Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Kieran Murray)

Asia outbreaks prompt question: Is all Zika dangerous?

A worker sprays insecticide for mosquitos at a village in Bangkok, Thailand,

By Julie Steenhuysen and Amy Sawitta Lefevre

CHICAGO/BANGKOK(Reuters) – Zika’s rampage last year in Brazil caused an explosion of infections and inflicted a crippling neurological defect on thousands of babies – an effect never seen in a mosquito-borne virus.

It also presented a mystery: why had a virus that had been little more than a footnote in the annals of infectious diseases taken such a devastating turn in the Americas? How had Africa and Asia, where Zika had quietly circulated for decades, escaped with no reports of major outbreaks or serious complications?

Scientists initially theorized that Zika’s long tenure in Africa and Asia may have conferred widespread immunity. Or, perhaps older strains were less virulent than the one linked in Brazil to more than 2,100 cases of microcephaly, a birth defect characterized by arrested brain development.

Now, amid outbreaks in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and other parts of Southeast Asia, a much graver explanation is taking shape: perhaps the menace has been there all along but neurological complications simply escaped official notice.

The question is driving several research teams, according to leading infectious disease experts and public health officials.

The answer is immediately important for Asia, the region most affected by Zika after the Americas. Thailand has been hardest hit with more than 680 reported Zika infections this year, followed by Singapore with more than 450 and Vietnam with as many as 60.

Much of the population lives in the so-called “dengue belt,” where mosquito-borne diseases are prevalent. And vulnerable countries – including Vietnam, the Philippines, Pakistan and Bangladesh – are ill-prepared to handle an outbreak with any serious consequences, experts said.

Lacking evidence of varying degrees of virulence, public health officials have warned Asia leaders to prepare for the worst. The scientific community is following similar assumptions.

“Zika is Zika until proven otherwise. We assume that all Zikas are equally dangerous,” said Dr. Derek Gatherer, a biomedical expert at Lancaster University in Britain.

WHICH ZIKA?

The World Health Organization recognizes two major lineages of Zika. The first originated in Africa, where it was discovered in 1947 and has not been identified outside that continent. The Asian lineage includes strains that have been reported in Asia, the Western Pacific, Cabo Verde and, notably, the Americas, including Brazil.

The Asian lineage was first isolated in the 1960s in mosquitoes in Malaysia. But some studies suggest the virus has been infecting people there since the 1950s. In the late 1970s, seven cases of human infection in Indonesia were reported.

The first record of a widespread outbreak was in 2007 on Micronesia’s Island of Yap.

Experts began to suspect a link to birth defects during a 2013 outbreak in French Polynesia when doctors reported eight cases of microcephaly and 11 other cases of fetal malformation.

In 2015, it hit Brazil, causing spikes in an array of neurological birth defects now called congenital Zika virus syndrome, as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder that can lead to temporary paralysis.

Viruses mutate rapidly, which can lead to strains that are more contagious and more virulent. Many researchers theorized early on that the devastation in Brazil was caused by an Asian strain that had mutated dramatically.

That theory relies, among other things, on the absence of Zika-related microcephaly in Asia. So when Zika broke out in parts of Asia earlier this year, researchers were on the lookout.

If researchers were to connect a case of microcephaly to an older Asian strain – and not one that boomeranged back from Brazil — it would debunk the early theory. It would mean Zika “did not mutate into a microcephaly-causing variant as it crossed the Pacific,” Gatherer said.

At least three microcephaly cases have been identified in Asia, but the verdict is still out.

For two microcephaly cases in Thailand, public health officials could not determine whether the mothers had an older Asian strain of Zika or a newer one that returned from the Americas, said Dr Boris Pavlin, WHO’s acting Zika incident manager at a recent briefing.

In Vietnam, where there have been no reports of imported Zika infection, officials are investigating a third case of microcephaly. If it is linked to Zika, Pavlin said it would suggest the older strains there could cause microcephaly and, perhaps, Guillain-Barre.

In Malaysia, where at least six cases of Zika infection have been reported, authorities have identified both an older Southeast Asian strain and one similar to the strain in the Americas, suggesting the possibility that strains from both regions could be circulating in some countries.

The hunt is on in Africa as well. In Guinea-Bissau, five microcephaly cases are under investigation to determine whether the African lineage of Zika can cause microcephaly.

It is a top research priority at WHO, said Dr Peter Salama, executive director of the agency’s health emergencies program, in a press briefing Tuesday.

“That is a critical question because it has real public health implication for African or Asian countries that already have Zika virus transmission,” Salama said. “We are all following this extremely closely.”

 

HERD IMMUNITY

Scientists also are trying to learn whether people in places where Zika is endemic are protected by “herd immunity.” The phenomenon limits the spread of virus when enough of a population is inoculated against infection through vaccination, prior exposure or both.

Experts believe Zika moved explosively in the Americas because there was no prior exposure. It’s not clear how widely Zika has circulated in Africa and Asia, whether there could be pockets of natural immunity – and, importantly, whether immunity to one strain would confer immunity to another.

One recent review of studies suggests 15 to 40 percent of the population in some African and Asian countries may have been previously infected with Zika, said Alessandro Vespignani, a professor of health sciences at Northeastern University in Boston.

That’s far below the 80 percent population immunity one mosquito borne virus expert estimated in the journal Science would be necessary to block Zika.

Researchers also believe it’s possible that microcephaly went undetected in parts of Asia and Africa where birth defects weren’t well tracked.

That too, is under investigation, said Dr David Heymann, Chair of the WHO Emergency Committee, at a press briefing last week.

“Now,” he said, “countries are beginning to look back into their records to see on their registries what the levels of microcephaly have been.”

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago and Amy Sawitta Lefevre in Bangkok; Additional reporting by Mai Nguyen and My Pham in Hanoi and Susan Heavey in Washington; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Lisa Girion)

Babies exposed to Zika developed microcephaly after birth

A 4-month-old baby born with microcephaly is held by his mother in front of their house in Olinda, near Recife, Brazil,

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Thirteen babies in Brazil born with normal head circumference have been diagnosed with congenital Zika syndrome, with brain scans showing extensive malformations, inflammation and reduced brain volume, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Of the 13 infants, 11 gradually developed the birth defect microcephaly, or abnormally small head size, in the months following birth.

The findings raise new concerns about the hidden effects of pre-natal exposure to the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has been shown to cause birth defects when women become infected during pregnancy.

On Friday, the World Health Organization declared the global Zika emergency over because the link between Zika and microcephaly has been confirmed. WHO intends to continue studying Zika as a serious infectious disease that will require years of research.

Although others have observed neurological problems in infants exposed to Zika during gestation, the study is the first to carefully document birth defects in a group of babies with confirmed Zika exposure whose head circumference fell into the normal range at birth.

The study, published on Tuesday in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weekly report on death and disease, was done by teams in Recife and Fortaleza in northeastern Brazil.

Eleven of the infants were born with heads that were on the small side and were referred for evaluation shortly after birth. The remaining two, born with normal head circumferences, were referred for evaluation at 5 to 7 months because of developmental concerns.

Among the observed symptoms, 10 of the 13 babies had trouble swallowing, seven had epilepsy, five showed some degree of irritability, nine could not voluntarily move their hands and all had hypertonia, or excessively stiff muscle tone.

In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, WHO officials said the fact that children can be born with normal head size but later develop microcephaly demonstrates that the definition of congenital Zika virus syndrome – the term WHO has associated with Zika-related birth defects – continues to expand.

Dr. Anthony Costello, WHO’s expert on maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health, said some 2,100 babies in Brazil have had confirmed cases of microcephaly related to Zika. He expects another 1,000 cases to be confirmed as doctors continue to investigate a backlog of suspected cases.

“We know the problem has not gone away in Brazil,” he said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Dan Grebler)