Translated, it is a backhanded compliment; a putdown aimed at those who see fit to comment or meddle in affairs that have no local bearing or relevance; but ignoring the elephant in the room.
So let’s bring out our microscope but keep the telescope handy.
Indeed, beautiful bugs, beetles and butterflies conjure images of purposeful pollination on a wing. On the other hand, buzzing mosquitoes portend a fate of pestilence and morbid disease. The former plays an indispensable role in the process of fertilisation essential to agriculture. The latter however, brings untold misery and detriment to humans to the point of stunting creation.
Welcome to a recently growing menace to society; one that has become a threat to the continued existence of all humanity!
So when the aedes aegypti was singled out as the harbinger of this universe’s most dreaded scourge since the Black Death, malaria and Ebola combined; we sit up and scurry about in panic.
Not that this is the first such deathly encounter with the dreaded mosquito vector. Dengue? Yeah, it has come to be such a common day occurrence that even as one death follows another, the reaction is one of blasé if not resigned indifference.
ENTOMOLOGY HOLDS THE KEY
The same surely cannot be said about Zika.
READ: The Zika threat
READ: WHO declares international health emergency over Zika
Mere mention of the virus alone ignites sinister images of medical meddling on the scale of Dr Mengele hunkered down in some Nazi-era Berlin bunker.
A common strand with the laboratory machinations of the man dubbed the 'Angel of Death' is the horrendous outcome associated with intervention of the human reproductive process.
Jews and Gypsies destined for the gas chamber were cherry-picked by Mengele to conduct outrageous experiments to prove his theory of Aryan superiority.
While the world is now relatively at peace, a new war has been declared on the entomological front.
The threat of battle may be remote but the macabre fate suffered by its victims are being brought to our living rooms to a global audience.
Indeed, all the world’s news media trained their spotlight on post-natal clinics in Brazil showing anxious parents cradling their bundled-up babies.
Immediately obvious are the shrunken heads with pronounced features that hints of Mongolism.
The harbinger of so much heartbreak to follow is the aedes aegypti; the same species that carries the dengue fever virus.
READ: What you need to know about the Zika virus
THE DENGUE LINK
Wait for it; Dengue? Now; that’s a menace that’s a clear and present danger on our home turf!
We have every reason to be alarmed. Local hospitals are overwhelmed by the pressure of new cases.
Papaya trees are being stripped bare of their leafy shoots, harvested to yield the ingredients that supposedly promise a cure.
So long as any dengue outbreak does not occur within 100 meters of our own comfort zone, the alarm bells somehow does not ring.
Blasé indifference if not outright ignorance therefore is a hurdle in this fight against both Zika and dengue.
READ: Ministry takes steps to prevent spread of Zika virus in Malaysia
CARNIVAL FACTOR
If we have some detractors who downplay the dengue danger; the Brazilians too have their own unique hurdle.
READ: Brazil declares emergency after 2,400 babies are born with brain damage
It is safe to say that the entire nation focuses so much attention to getting it right for Carnival to the exclusion of everything else.
So much energy and resources are expended to prepare for the brash bacchanalian bash each February.
If the din and outlandish costumes can confuse the aedes aegypti enough to interfere with their biological processes; then all that debauched revelry would have be especially sweeter this year.
For now the prevalence of Zika is quite restricted to the Americas. Some of us would need to fish out the telescope to nudge out an atlas gathering dust at the back of some book shelf. Look afar, but don't forget to look closer at home.
But even if knowledge of Geography does not take your fancy, just peer under the microscope and you’ll see Zika looming large coming soon to our own backyard!
