The scarcity of water is just one of a long list of headaches for the struggling South American oil giant, but it comes with a particularly nasty risk. With the transmission of Zika, the mosquito-borne virus is blamed for causing brain damage in babies. Venezuela, which hardly needed another problem to add to its triple-digit inflation and plunging oil revenues, has registered 4,700 suspected cases of Zika since the virus, which originated in Africa, began sweeping through Latin America last year.