Early Zika Infection Produce 14% Chance Of Microcephaly In Brazil

[niman]

Microcephaly risk associated with zika is 14% in Brazil, study finds

VIRUS ZIKA

| 18 MAR 2016 4:24 PM

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EFE

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TOKIO. Researchers at Tokyo University say infected by the virus zika in early stages of pregnancy may increase the risk that the fetus develop microcephaly up by more than 14 percent in Brazil.

This means that one in seven pregnant South American country would risk associated with microcephaly transmit infection to the baby, notes the research led by Professor Hiroshi Nishiura collected today by public broadcaster NHK.

Microcephaly, a condition associated with a reduction in the size of the skull and brain, usually affects 2 out of every 10,000 births in Europe and Brazil, according to a study published this week in the British journal The Lancet.

According to this study, one out of every hundred women Zika virus infected during the first trimester of pregnancy risk that the fetus develop microcephaly, but Japanese researchers suggest that in Brazil this proportion is significantly higher.

To reach their conclusions, the group analyzed data from virus outbreak in northeastern Brazil, the region hardest hit by the epidemic and where there has been the highest concentration of cases of microcephaly in newborns.

This is the first study using data collected in the South American country, according to Japanese researchers (the study published in the British journal is based on data obtained during an outbreak of zika in French Polynesia between 2013 and 2014).

Apart from the reported cases of microcephaly in newborns, the researchers took into account the cases of patients initially diagnosed with dengue fever and subsequently tested negative in blood tests, which were supposed to have contracting zika, whose symptoms they are similar.

Scientists do not rule out that the figures may vary depending on the accuracy of the data the Latin American country, but said the risk is apparently higher than that usually affects pregnant.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than twenty countries and territories, mostly Latin Americans, have been enacted areas at risk of infection by zika, transmitted by mosquitoes of the species Aedes Aegypti mosquito, transmitter further dengue and chikungunya.

While it is true that the WHO warned last week that still has not been definitively proven that zika is directly responsible for microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome, he admitted that there is increasing evidence to suggest. EFE

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