- Zika virus is now strongly linked with the condition of brain absence among newly borns called hydrancephaly
- Previously, Zika virus was just associated with microcephaly or the condition of babies born with smaller heads
- Just this month, the World Health Organization has announced Zika as a global threat
A study has strengthened the link between the Zika virus and the case of hydrancencephaly among babies; something previously dismissed by medical experts.
In the study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, a story of the baby of a Brazilian infected with the virus was born without a brain and that the “brain cavities were filed with fluid” instead of tissues.
This, said an earlier Fox report, is the first research to associate the rapidly epidemic Zika virus with “damage to fetal tissues outside the central nervous system.”
The earlier cases of babies born from Zika-infected parents were those with microcephaly or the condition in which a baby is born with a smaller heads due to the absence or a minimized brain.
“Although Zika has not been proven to cause microcephaly, scientists say the evidence is growing stronger,” the Fox report also said.
Earlier in February, the World Health Organization declared the Zika virus a global “health emergency” following a surge of birth defect cases in South America.
The virus is caused by the mosquito species Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. Earlier reports have linked the virus infection to mothers giving birth to babies with defects such as microcephaly and the Guillain-Barre syndrome – a condition that causes paralysis due to the immune system attacking the nervous system.
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