CDC reports Missouri man who traveled to Haiti infected with Zika virus

Mar 08, 2016, 11:48

The study was published on Friday in the journal Cell Stem Cell.

Brazil, till now, has confirmed more than 640 cases of microcephaly in the country and considered of most of these cases to be linked with the Zika virus.

The new study enrolled 88 pregnant women from Rio de Janeiro who had developed a rash (a sign of Zika infection). But the CDC and other health organizations say the evidence of a link between Zika and microcephaly is growing.

Though the research did not declare yet that Zika virus is the main cause of microcephaly, the hypothesis on the presentation of how the virus travels in the brain has been solidified as it was found on the brains of newborns who died and in the fluid from the placenta of infected pregnant women, Washington Post reported.

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Almost 80 percent of people infected with the virus will have no symptoms.

There have been rising concerns globally about the association of Zika virus and severe birth defects like microcephaly. Two of the mothers who had normal ultrasound results delivered healthy babies. But it raised alarm when Brazilian health officials reported an apparent surge in babies born with microcephaly, which can signal their brains didn't develop properly. One of the small babies and the infant with microcephaly had lesions in their eyes indicating blindness. No Zika virus-related hospitalizations or deaths among pregnant women were reported.

"Unfortunately, we still have many unanswered questions", said Dr. Christopher M. Zahn of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. But he stressed that his study does not prove that Zika causes microcephaly, nor that it works by that route.

The WHO's Emergency Committee is due to meet on Tuesday to review "evolving information" and its recommendations on travel, trade and mosquito control in what is thought to be high season for transmission of the virus in the southern hemisphere.

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Zika has been most commonly known to be spread through mosquitos bites, however, there have also been reports of the virus being spread through sexual intercourse.

Scientists from Johns Hopkins University, Emory University and Florida State University found that the virus likely targets a type of cell that actively divides in the human brain between the second and fourth month of gestation.

"We are trying to fill the knowledge gap between the infection and potential neurological defects", said Tang, whose lab studies RNA viruses like Zika, Dengue, and hepatitis C virus.

One concerning discovery was that the cells that Zika infected became factories for viral replication.

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