The Zika virus, while not nearly as serious as other viruses that spread recently, such as ebola, can still cause a whole lot of trouble in a person who gets infected. The symptoms include fever, rash and fatigue (so basically like a typical Tuesday for me) and they usually clear up in a week, but the worst part, which is what has made health authorities everywhere go on high alert, is that if a pregnant woman gets infected with Zika (or Zik V, as it’s sometimes referred to), her baby might be born with an otherwise extremely rare birth defect known as microcephaly. To put it simply, babies with microcephaly have underdeveloped brains and a smaller head, and I don’t need to be a doctor to tell you precisely why this is bad. While the Zika virus is of little danger to the mother, it can potentially destroy her child’s life, which is why health authorities everywhere have banded to raise awareness of the virus and give tips on how to reduce the chance of infection.
We’ve all seen the instructional videos in which a boring doctor explains to us that we should exchange the water regularly to prevent it from stagnating and handle our garbage properly to avoid attracting bugs, and according to studies conducted by yours truly, those videos, while informative, are not particularly fun to watch. The government of Jamaica seems to entirely agree with me, as it has decided to forego the boring instructional videos entirely. How, or how, would they inform Jamaicans in a language that they would understand? By using the power of reggae, of course! In a brand new 45-second PSA released and officially condoned by the Ministry of Health, a reggae singer quickly and efficiently takes us through the steps of minimizing the chance of a Zika outbreak, and while he might be a little bit hard to understand at times if you’re not used to the particular pronunciations of Jamaican English, especially in the context of reggae, the overall message is pretty clear.
As of the time of this writing, the video has about 20,000 views, which isn’t bad for a channel with only 26 subscribers! Spreading not only across Jamaica, but also all over the Americas, the clip has reached the status of a minor meme due to how light-hearted and funny it is for something that’s coming directly from the government. As I mentioned above, most PSAs (or Public Service Announcements) are fairly dull even when they attempt something different. A special shout-out should be given to the numerous anti-drug PSAs that ran in several countries across the 80s and 90s, some of which were so bad that they’re still remembered fondly even today (“Where did you learn this stuff?” “You, alright? I learned it by watching you!”), so kudos to the Jamaican Ministry of Health for choosing to do something different.