Zika causes microcephaly, other birth defects: US CDC
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E-mail China.org.cn, April 14, 2016
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Image taken on Feb. 27, 2016 shows Angela Martinez, playing with her daughter Dominic Andrade (R), who suffers microcephaly, in Quito, capital of Ecuador. Dominic Andrade, 4 months old, permanently receives therapy at home and on the facilities of a hospital due to microcephaly that has affected her since birth. Since the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a global alert against the virus, on Feb. 1, the authorities of several countries in America have strengthened the dissemination of messages in mass media for people to avoid the bite of "Aedes aegypti" transmitter of Zika virus, dengue and chikungunya. However Zika virus continues to spread explosively in America, where there has been an increasing number of cases of microcephaly. (Xinhua file photo/Santiago Armas) |
The Zika virus causes microcephaly and other severe fetal brain defects, according to a statement of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday.
Based on established scientific criteria, scientists at the U.S. CDC conducted a careful review of existing research and agreed that the evidence was conclusive, said Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. agency.
"This study marks a turning point in the Zika outbreak. It is now clear that the virus causes microcephaly," Frieden said. The CDC is launching further studies to determine whether microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, is only "the tip of the iceberg of what we could see in damaging effects on the brain and other developmental problems."
The conclusion, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, means that a woman infected with Zika during pregnancy has an increased risk of having a baby with these health problems, the CDC said.
It does not mean, however, that all women who have Zika virus infection during pregnancy will have babies with problems, it continued.
"As has been seen during the current Zika outbreak, some infected women have delivered babies that appear to be healthy," the CDC statement said.
The CDC report noted many questions remain including the spectrum of defects caused by prenatal Zika infection, the degree of relative and absolute risks of adverse outcomes among fetuses whose mothers were infected at different times during pregnancy, and factors that might affect a woman's risk of adverse pregnancy or birth outcomes.
"Addressing these questions will improve our ability to reduce the burden of the effects of Zika virus infection during pregnancy," the report wrote.
Zika is transmitted primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito, which also spreads chikungunya, and dengue.
Symptoms include fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes, but severe disease requiring hospitalization is uncommon and case fatality is low.
There is now no vaccine or medicine available for Zika virus.
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