Mayor Eduardo Paes handed a big golden key to the carnival's
ceremonial King Momo on Friday
The organisers promised a spectacular show and said the
huge, dazzling event was 'the 'best on Earth'
Annual mega-bash famed for lavish and skimpily dressed samba
parades expected to attract five million people
This year's carnival across Brazil starts under the cloud of
Zika virus which can cause serious birth defects
Rio's five-day festival of dancing, bared flesh and wild
costumes got underway in the face of warnings the Zika virus might make even
kissing dangerous.
Mayor Eduardo Paes handed a big golden key to the carnival's
ceremonial King Momo, who promised a spectacular show.
'With great happiness, brotherly love and peace, I declare
the best carnival on Earth open - our carnival in the marvelous city,' the
dancing king, who is elected ahead of the festivities, said on Friday.
The annual mega-bash famed for lavish and skimpily dressed
samba parades and all-night street dancing is expected to attract as many as
five million people.
In Sao Paulo, Brazil's most populous city and its economic
capital, carnival celebrations were kicked off under intermittent summer rain,
with a tribute to Carlinhos de Jesus, one of Brazil's most famous salon
dancers.
This year's carnival across Brazil starts under the cloud of
the mosquito-transmitted Zika virus, which normally provokes few ill effects,
but is blamed for an outbreak of serious birth defects in babies born to
mothers infected while pregnant.
The scare gripping Latin America took a new twist with the
announcement that the virus - so far believed to be transmitted almost
exclusively through mosquito bites - can be detected in saliva and urine.
There is no proof yet that Zika can spread through bodily
fluids, said Paulo Gadelha, head of the Fiocruz institute in Rio de Janeiro.
But he still advised pregnant women 'to avoid kissing.'
The carnival which peaks on Sunday and Monday nights with
the competing samba parades at the Sambadrome, famous for their choreography
and extraordinary costumes.
But like the rest of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro is struggling
with deep recession and the economic hurt has extended to the carnival
industry.
Big ensembles competing in the Sambadrome say that city
funding has dried up and that private sponsors are also running scared, while
the plunging value in the national currency means importing mostly Chinese
fabrics for costumes has driven up prices.
'The situation has been difficult for four or five years,
but this year was worse because everyone is in crisis and prices are rising,'
the administrator of the Uniao da Ilha samba school, Marcio Andre Mehry de
Souza, said.
No comments:
Post a Comment