Abortion Pills Demand Soar High From Zika Outbreak Countries

Demand for abortion pills has increased dramatically in Brazil, Ecuador and couple of other Latin American countries even though most of laws have a ban on abortions. The new trend is the believe to end pregnancies rather than give birth to baby with defects in the Zika virus outbreak countries.

In a study researchers have analyzed online requests for such pills have hiked and are not believed to be representative of all the women. It is also not known how many abortions have actually occurred in the countries.

The issue is genuine and many now are wondering about. In states like Texas and Florida in the United States the abortion restrictions have increased and number of such abortion service providers has decreased too.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Abigail Aiken of the University of Texas, said situations for the US women may not differ from countries like Ecuador or Brazil as Zika virus is not transmitting locally.

The tropical mosquito carries Zika virus and infected people just gets mild illness, but infection during pregnancy lead to severe brain-related birth defects.

The researchers approached an international online service named Women on Web, which helps women in accessing abortion services. The website gets 1 million visits a month.

Details of the study are published in the New England Journal of Medicine journal.