In an effort to cut down on burritos contaminated with fecal matter, here in America, Chipotle Grill is working hard to teach undocumented workers, guilty of third-world bathroom habits, how to wash up before handling the refried beans. 

Lesson #1: Failing to remove those hygienic-looking rubber gloves before visiting the restroom, and then handling the avocadoes and cilantro without putting on a new pair, does not make for a healthy crispy corn taco.

In any case, farther south, teams in Brazil are going door to door to educate residents about how to clean up standing water.  The reason?  Although standing water festering in a deflated tire can double as the watering station for feral dogs, it is also a breeding ground for, in this case, mosquitoes infected with the Zika virus.

Right now, in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, Zika is considered pandemic.

Normally, the Zika virus causes only minor symptoms, but Brazilian health officials are concerned because, in the last three months, more than 3,500 children have been born with microcephaly, a typically rare condition that causes incomplete brain development and an unusually small head.  Babies born with microcephaly usually don’t survive more than one or two days.

Officials believe that the recent uptick in this ordinarily rare condition may be caused by the tremendous increase in Zika-infected mosquitoes.

In response, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Tom Skinner is warning Americans that at least “a dozen or so” confirmed cases of Zika virus have been diagnosed in residents who traveled to countries where the mosquito-borne virus is currently spreading. 

Here at home, Americans are being infected with things like scabies, Chikungunya virus, Chagas disease, chicken pox, and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections.  These illnesses are part of an ever growing hodgepodge of imported diseases once foreign to North America.

Now that Zika virus has been added to that list, predictably illegal immigrant-friendly health officials/amnesty allies are making an effort to reassure the American public not to be nervous about yet another foreign virus.  Why?  Because Zika is dangerous only to unborn babies who contract the virus in utero.

Pregnant or not, what the CDC statement alludes to is that rather than the source being mosquitos currently residing in the U.S. mainland, or crossing the U.S. border in the backpack of an already infected illegal immigrant, the domestic cases cropping up are being blamed on travelers who came home with the virus after falling victim to foreign mosquitos. 

Travelers?  Coming home?

Blaming American travelers for illnesses endemic to the countries illegal immigrants migrate from is similar to the liberal mantra that Islamic terrorism is in no way tied to Islam.

In other words, if one were to be dumb enough to take the CDC seriously, Americans whose immune systems are presently under siege would have to believe that the Zika virus is not the result of hosts who have illegally crossed the Mexican border from countries where the virus is spreading.

If what the CDC is selling is true, then it would be quite a coincidence that four out of five of the states where the virus has been confirmed (Florida, Texas, New Jersey, and Illinois) also have the largest unauthorized immigrant populations.

It would also mean that the baby recently born in an Oahu hospital who was infected with the Zika virus couldn’t have possibly been born with microcephaly, because his mother traveled from Brazil to have her baby in Hawaii.

And just because a woman with the disease happened to “visit” Bergen County after Thanksgiving, was diagnosed with Zika at Christmas, recovered, and has since returned to Colombia, that doesn’t mean that the overabundance of illegal immigrants wandering around New Jersey who may have been bitten by a hungry mosquito should be suspect.

That’s why, if there is a similar increase in microcephaly in newborn babies born in the U.S., Americans shouldn’t conduct themselves like the xenophobic fearmongers who blamed the throngs of “unaccompanied minors” last year for American children dying of Latin America-imported Enterovirus D-68.  

Instead, Americans should believe what the government says and place the blame on vacation, not invasion.

And with that in mind, let’s swat away those pesky mosquitoes flying around Chipotle Grill and dig into a burrito bowl prepared by a feverish, albeit hardworking, non-English-speaking undocumented food handler suffering from a rash and pinkeye.

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.com.