Yes, we have Zika. Our little island has joined the rest of the West Indies and is now home to this nasty virus. How common is it? Not too common. How bad is it? Depends.

The most obvious thing that effects our community is that some people have contracted Zika. There have even been a few students at American University of the Caribbean who have had it. You hear a lot of horror stories about how awful it is, but honestly, it varies from person to person. Some people have hardly felt a thing and didn’t know they had it until they were tested. Others have had severe flu-like symptoms that put them behind in their studies for a week or so. Ben and I may have had it and not known it.

Zika is known to cause birth defects in unborn children. The World Health Organization has recommended that women carefully consider delaying pregnancy. This really stinks for the families in our community who were trying to have children. It’s been hard on a lot of people.

Zika is scaring some of our visitors away. Many of us had friends who planned to visit, and some of them cancelled their plans because of pregnancy or fear.

I’m not particularly worried about it. I did take a few pregnancy tests to make sure I’m not pregnant, and they were negative. So we’re just going about our business as usual and being sure to wear bug spray and keep the door closed after dark.

So just in case you were curious or worried, we’re OK. Like any other epidemic, Zika is a little scary, and the media makes it sound much scarier than it is! But life goes on here and we battle the mosquitoes the same way we always have to for more familiar viruses like dengue.