Birth Defects Are Ordinary in Zika-Infected Women

STATES CHRONICLE – American pregnant women who got infected by Zika virus gave birth to babies having birth defects. The new report developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has proved that in the United States a woman infected with Zika gives birth to a baby who has at least one congenital disability.

This registry represents a partnership between the local and state health departments in the continental US and Hawaii and the CDC which was prepared in January bound to monitor pregnant women infected with Zika. The report was recently published in JAMA. It offers details referring to about 442 Zika-infected women who finalized their pregnancies between the period starting on January 15 and ending on September 22.

Approximately 26 of these pregnant females, meaning 6% of them, gave birth to kids who have at least a Zika-related congenital disability. These defects mainly involved microcephaly which determined abnormalities at the level of the brain. Among females who were infected with the terrible virus during their first trimester, 11% of them reported having babies which presented Zika-connected birth defects.

Statistics show that Zika poses the most significant risk early during pregnancy. Officials at CDC argued that the discoveries demonstrate that the rates of fetal impairments and microcephaly linked with Zika virus proved to be similar among babies born in the US with those born in Brazil. The mothers of these children might have contracted the virus while traveling.

Studies have shown that Brazil represents the epicenter of the outbreak of the terrible virus. On the other hand, Tom Frieden, the director of CDC, argued that this evidence annihilates the idea that Brazil was somehow different from other infected areas. All these infected women contracted the virus while traveling, being outside the mainland of the US, or through sex with a person who was already infected.

Margret Honein, the chief of the congenital disabilities branch at the CDC, pointed out that the countries where those women were exposed to Zika virus. The list contains Venezuela, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Honduras, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Brazil, Belize, and Barbados. Eighteen out of 26 babies with birth defects were diagnosed with microcephaly.

This number is higher than the prevalence of microcephaly in the US which was usually estimated to affect 7 out of 10,000 births.

Image courtesy of: wikipedia