Zika, the mosquito borne disease that stirred the
African and south American countries from 2015’s last months, has taken toll of
several lives. While the most immediate effect was seen among the newborn kids
and pregnant women, a team of scientist from US and Brazil says that this is
only the ‘tip of the iceberg’.
“The consequences of the Zika virus could be far
worse than previously thought, with microcephaly in newborns merely the most
immediately visible effect,” as the scientist have said. Apart from birth defects among the new born
babies, other harmful neurological conditions among babies are higher for about
20 percent than the infected pregnant women.
Reports are that once a pregnant woman is infected
with Zika virus the baby’s brain in the womb stops developing, causing them to
be born with small heads and immature brains. Microcephaly is the most talked
consequences of Zika virus infection.
The scientists’ team said that the microcephaly condition
is estimated to affect the children of 1 per cent of pregnant women with Zika.
The virus has also been linked to Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare and
potentially fatal disorder that causes the immune system to attack the nerve
system, leading to paralysis, said reports.
A study published in the New England Journal of
Medicine said that 29 percent women, those who are infected with Zika, when
went through a pre-natal scan, showed abnormalities in their womb worrying
specialists. “The microcephaly and other birth defects we have been seeing
could be the tip of the iceberg,” said in a meeting couple of weeks ago in the
Pediatric Academic Societies in Baltimore. Brazil has already seen as many as
2844 cases of Zika virus positive cases in pregnant women.
Though much have not been known about the other slow
but sure effects of zika, but medial specialist pointed out that ‘ventriculomegaly,
damage of the posterior fossa, craniocynostosis and cerebral calcification’ is
suspected among the other consequences.
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