Florida Reports First Baby Born With Zika Virus Defects

One of the jabs was a DNA vaccine based on a Zika virus strain isolated in Brazil, while the other was a purified, inactivated virus vaccine (meaning it was made non-functional) based on a Zika virus strain isolated in Puerto Rico. They virus also lasted longer in pregnant monkeys compared to non-pregnant ones.

In the journal Nature Communications, researchers report how they are establishing rhesus macaque monkeys at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center as a model for researching the progress of Zika virus infections in people.

The first case of microcephaly, a birth defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and incomplete brain development, has surfaced in Florida.

Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, said: “On the face of it, this is very good news and a significant step towards developing an effective vaccine to prevent Zika virus infection and the horrendous complications that this virus can sometimes cause”.

“If you’re not pregnant and not at risk of becoming pregnant, even if you happen to get a Zika infection, you don’t have to worry about getting it again for a really long time”, O’Connor said. It’s possible that it’s due to expectant mothers’ weakened immune systems, which makes it harder for the body to fight off the infection.

Researchers infected pregnant monkeys with the Zika virus to learn how it harms developing fetuses – and in a highly unusual twist, the public can get a real-time peek at the findings. One theory is that if a fetus is infected, it will pump virus back into mom’s blood, O’Connor said.

“That’s the one we internally favor and we’re trying to test that now”, he said.

As of Monday, 123 people in Florida, including 40 pregnant women, have been diagnosed with Zika. Rita Driggers, one of the study’s lead authors and medical director of Sibley Memorial Hospital’s maternal-fetal medicine division in Washington, has suggested the fetus was also infected and repeatedly infecting the mother. The threat of a real outbreak in the US comes from the possibility that one of those infected people could be bitten by a local mosquito, which could then go on to bite another person and spread the virus.

The researchers infected monkeys with the strain of Zika responsible for the epidemic in South America that first became apparent in 2015. A few days after they were presented with the virus, the control mice had the virus present in their blood, indicating that they were infected.