A few months ago, Haiti confirmed a case of Zika-related microcephaly, a severe birth defect.
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Federal and state health officials responded to the Wynwood Zika cases – the first local transmission of the virus in the United States – with heavy mosquito-control efforts, intensive blood testing, and epidemiologic efforts to track where people had been infected.
However, the link between the two had been unclear, until recently. According to the data, 80% of 30 mothers of cases had Zika virus infection, compared with 64% of 61 mothers of controls.
Zika infection during pregnancy may lead to microcephaly in children, which is responsible for incomplete brain development and an unusually small head.
The researchers said they published their preliminary findings without waiting to finish the larger study – which will look at 200 babies with microcephaly and 400 control babies – because the results were so powerful. Despite this, the early results are striking.
“However, when we compared laboratory confirmed Zika virus infection in newborns with and without microcephaly, we found that about half of the cases with microcephaly had laboratory confirmed Zika virus infection, compared to none of the healthy controls”.
Brazilian and British scientists have released strong data suggesting that pregnant women with the Zika virus could give birth to newborns with microcephaly.
After its outbreak in Brazil past year, Zika virus is coming closer to Indonesia.
A high proportion of mothers of both microcephaly and non-microcephaly babies also tested positive for another mosquito-borne virus, dengue fever, as well as other infections such as herpes, rubella and toxoplasma.
Some believe the backlog was caused by Governor Scott offering free Zika tests to pregnant woman.
Singapore has recorded 341 Zika cases since Aug 27.
In a linked commentary, Dr. Patricia Brasil, of the Fiocruz foundation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Karin Nielsen-Saines, a professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), note how the authors point out the urgent need for a “uniform diagnostic approach” for microcephaly, which is now poorly defined.
In the editorial, Brasil and Nielsen-Saines wrote that the study raised the question of how microcephaly is defined.
Tests are now being conducted by the Institute of Medical Research (IMR) to determine the Zika virus strain that has infected two sisters.
Sensitization sessions on the implications of Zika Virus and the possible modes of transmission are routinely provide through antenatal clinics at Wellness Centres throughout the island.
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In the meantime, researchers recommend that “we prepare for a global epidemic of microcephaly and other manifestations of congenital Zika syndrome”.
