Zika virus is spread to people primarily through mosquito bites. The virus particles are colored red in the picture.
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The World Health Organization in January declared a public health emergency over thousands of Brazilian infants born with microcephaly – a severe birth defect that causes a shrunken skull and brain – in the wake of the virus outbreak a year ago.
Moreover, the fetus had damage to tissues outside of the central nervous system, the researchers said.
“Tackling mosquito-borne viruses requires focus on both humans and insects”, says Alexander Franz, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology at the MU College of Veterinary Medicine.
A male teenager near Tokyo was found to have been infected with Zika virus after a visit to Brazil, Japan’s first case of the infection since the virus started spreading widely in Latin America a year ago, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. She had a normal first trimester but her pregnancy took a turn for the worse during her 18th week of pregnancy.
In the paper, the researchers point out that this patient didn’t even know she had Zika-only about one in four people infected are symptomatic-so it could be that this association has already emerged, but we’ve missed it because we didn’t know what to look for.
The woman’s doctors detected a range of defects by week 30 – including microcephaly and hydrops featalis. For example, the fetus’s head was abnormally small, and parts of the brain were missing. Labour was induced at the 32nd week. It also turned out the fetus had joint deformities. Of those, 508 confirmed as microcephaly and most of those cases are linked to the virus.
February 23: CDC investigating 14 cases of possible sexual transmission of Zika.
Yet, the case suggests ‘that this could be a systemic infection of the fetus, that not only the brain development could be affected, ‘ Dr Permar added.
Since it is likely large numbers of pregnant women in contaminated regions will be exposed to the same Zika strain, further investigations are needed urgently to determine the risk of stillbirth.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have warned pregnant women – as well as those considering becoming pregnant – against traveling to Zika-affected areas.
Right now, scientists still aren’t able to confirm for sure what the link is between Zika and microcephaly, so we’re a long way from finding out if the virus can cause stillbirths, and if so, just how high the risk may be.
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The study showed the baby’s brain was absent, a condition known as hydranencephaly.
