41 Guillain-Barre syndrome in Colombia Zika cases

[niman]

Deputy Health Minister Fernando Ruiz said Friday Colombia has now recorded 41 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome that appear to be linked to Zika. It had detected 12 such cases a week ago.

http://www.waow.com/story/31090178/the-latest-paralyzing-illness-grows-in-colombia-venezuela

[niman]

6:30 p.m.

Colombia and Venezuela says they are both seeing a jump in cases of a rare, sometimes-paralyzing syndrome that may be linked to the Zika virus.

Deputy Health Minister Fernando Ruiz said Friday Colombia has now recorded 41 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome that appear to be linked to Zika. It had detected 12 such cases a week ago.

Colombia says it's had about 16,500 suspected cases of Zika, though only a small fraction have been confirmed by laboratory tests.

The mosquito-borne virus is spreading rapidly after being detected last year in Brazil. Investigators are scrambling to determine if it's related to seeming increases in the birth defect known as microcephaly or to Guillain-Barre, which can leave patients temporarily paralyzed.

Venezuelan Health Minister Luisana Melo said her country's seen 255 cases of Guillain-Barre, apparently as part of its effort to fight Zika, though she did not specify the link or the time frame.

Former Health Minister Jose Oletta says the country normally sees 30 to 40 cases of Guillain-Barre a month and said the large number now indicates that Zika infections are far greater than the roughly 4,500 suspected cases than officials acknowledge.

[niman]

Zika virus infection outbreak, French Polynesia 14 February 2014

As of 7 February 2014, of 746 samples sent for laboratory confirmation, 396 (53.1%) were confirmed by RT-PCR at Institut Louis Malardé. It is estimated that more than 28 000 cases have sought medical care with Zika-like symptoms in French Polynesia since the beginning of the outbreak (around 11.5% of the population of French Polynesia). The clinical presentation of confirmed Zika cases was consistent with the literature: mild fever, rash, non-purulent conjunctivitis, arthralgia, myalgia, headache and distal oedema. None of these mild cases was hospitalised. According to Polynesia Epibulletin, 70 cases presented with neurological or auto-immune complications between November 2013 and 7 February 2014 [48]. Among those, there were 38 cases of Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) after the initial ZIKAV infection and 25 had neurological complications (encephalitis, meningo-encephalitis, paraesthesia, facial paralysis and myelitis). Seven cases had other complications: four with immune thrombocytopenic purpura, two were ophthalmologic complications and one had a cardiac complication. Among the GBS cases, 73% were male, the mean age was 45.9 years (range: 27–70), and almost all cases were ethnic Polynesians. Fifteen cases were admitted to the intensive care unit and nine cases required mechanical ventilation. No deaths have been reported. All GBS cases developed neurological symptoms following a disease episode with symptoms compatible with ZIKAV infection in previous days, one of the cases has been laboratoryconfirmed to be Zika by RT-PCR at the initial infection, and other preliminary results show positive IgG against ZIKAV for several cases, after the occurrence of neurological signs [48]. The clustering in time of GBS cases is considered unusual as the annual number of GBS cases in French Polynesia are 5, 10, 3 and 3 in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively. As of 31 January 2014, five patients remained hospitalised and overall a total of 18 individuals had been admitted to the local rehabilitation centre. The intensive care resources in this insular setting have been under intense stress to cope with patients presenting neurological complications.

http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/Zika-virus-French-Polynesia-rapid-risk-assessment.pdf