A team of researchers led by a Florida State University scientist announced on Friday that they may have found “an entry point” for establishing a causal link between the Zika virus and microcephaly, a birth defect in which a baby is born with an abnormally small head and an underdeveloped brain.
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The 88 pregnant women included in the study all developed a rash within five days of being treated by a clinic with the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro.
Overall, ultrasounds detected abnormalities in the fetuses of 12 of 42 women who had Zika, including two babies who were born small for their gestational age, and one with microcephaly. It attacks the outer layer of a baby’s brain, making the cells die rather than divide normally and make new ones.
Among the countries confirmed of having infected by the virus are Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Curacao, Dominica Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadaloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin, Surinam, Virgin Islands (United States) and Venezuela. It enables us to focus the research.
Other countries with Zika also are reporting a steep increase in cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a neurological disorder that can cause paralysis.
These discoveries are perhaps related only to the disruption of cerebral development, though it now seems more likely that proof of a direct link between Zika and microcephaly will emerge in further clinical studies, the authors say. “Severe microcephaly, especially with other abnormalities that sometimes come with microcephaly, may have long-term devastating consequences up to and including death”, said Dr. Jeanne Sheffield with Johns Hopkins Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
There are no known cases where the mosquitoes have transmitted the Zika virus in California.
That’s a huge help to researchers, getting them closer to developing a vaccine for Zika.
Studies showed the virus targeted cells that were important for the development of the brain, before disabling or destroying them.
American doctors have been advised to consider Zika infections in patients who report rapid onset of Zika symptoms within two weeks of traveling to one of the affected countries.
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“The risk is really probably much higher, as reported in this paper, than what any of us would’ve predicted”, Schleiss said. “And that’s the reason we’ve asked the Emergency Committee again next week to convene and look at these data”, the WHO’s Aylward said, referring to a group of independent experts chaired by David Heymann. The virus only had marginal effects on the regular stem cells of the neurons they grew into.
