In Barranquilla, this warm and humid city on the Caribbean shore is conceived to reckon the answer beneath the mysteries of the epidemic Zika Virus. This disputed epidemic draws an inference that as to why the world's second largest outbreak next to Brazil beget minimal birth defects. This leads to another concern of what are the underlying facts that caused Zika to reign in that particular region.

In a data, a comparison of babies affected of Zika virus in Brazil and Colombia is presented. It is surprising to note that in Brazil, a huge number of babies have been born with microcephaly which totaled to more than 2,000 babies, who had small heads and brain damage. Whereas, in Colombia, the officials' prediction that it will reach to 700 at the end of this year never meet to its actual damage for there are only 47 as confirmed in The New York Times.

The huge difference has been noticed all throughout Americas. On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a data of Zika cases. The data marks U.S. with 28 cases, which almost linked to women infected elsewhere, while Guatemala is marked with 15 cases. Martinique has only 12 cases. When asked whether Americas is equally affected as Northeastern Brazil, most of the experts answered that it won't happen.

Finding and determining what caused the stop of microcephaly in Colombia will be a great help to other countries choked up of the worst result the epidemic brings. There are few apparent differences between Colombia and Brazil's epidemics. The total population of Colombia is less than one-fourth of Brazil.

Moreover, nearly half of its dwellers settle at higher altitudes, where mosquitos are strange. In addition Zika propagated in silence in a longer period of time. In early 2014, it arrived and devastated the place, unlike in Colombia that the virus hit there in the late 2015.

Colombia had just withstand an inexorable chikungunya epidemic in 2014, thus it made them more ready than Brazil, to discharge the anti-mosquito brigade. However, the distinctions mentioned earlier are not adequate enough to explain. Pieces of evidence continue to mount for other probabilities. Officials state that pregnant women here in Colombia are forewarned of the unfolding tragedy in Brazil, which may have sought in greater number of abortions. Furthermore, women have followed orders altogether to the controvertible advice of the government to hold pregnancy.

Dr. Miguel Parra-Saavedra, director of maternal-fetal medicine at the Cedifetal Clinic and  the country's renowned specialist on high-risk pregnancy,  suspected that many pregnant women who were alarmed by news reports went to doctors and had undergone ultrasounds that detected deformed fetuses. Thus, they have resolved to abort it. He admitted that some of his patients have done it.

As the spearhead of a study on Zika-related birth defects, Dr. Saavedra, in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has diagnosed 13 cases of fetal microcephaly. He disclosed that four mothers immediately stopped their pregnancies. He added that another set of mothers sought abortions but were declined by their health insurance companies. Deliberately, only four patients, chose to have their babies, Saavedra affirmed.

Hence, Colombia allowed abortion to protect a mother's health, and the health ministry considered a severely deformed baby a threat to maternal mental well-being it added to the reduction of the number of babies affected of Zika.

Colombia's vice minister for public health, Dr Fernando Ruiz added that it is also "very possible" that abortions lowered the microcephaly rate here. To note, Colombia is one of the countries that has some of the most progressive laws and regulations in South America, Ruiz iterated in an interview. Alarmed with the gynecologists to the threat, several women had decided to have ultrasounds and had discerned that early.

A sharp reduction in microcephaly is the result of a very little increase in the abortion rate. As cited on NewsReportOnline, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based research organization which supports abortion rights, reported that there was a 320 legal abortions in Colombia in 2011. However, the institute estimates that there actually were 400,400 abortions in Colombia each year. 

In the contrary, abortion in Brazil is permitted only in rape cases or incest or to save the mother's life. Illegal abortions are difficult to get because the cops are compelled from evangelical Christians in Brazil's Congress, began to crack down on secret clinics a decade ago.