Zika babies could develop severe brain damage after birth — CDC

But its real objective was to stimulate more study on the alarming link between Zika and devastating birth defects.

Everyone can agree that 2016 has been a very hard year, but as it comes to an end so do numerous things that made it so, like the elections and the worldwide public health threat caused by the Zika virus.

It turns out they were not unscathed. The slowed head growth and microcephaly were accompanied by significant neurologic complications. It affects babies, and by outcome, their mothers. They focused on 13 in particular. All of the infants had positive tests for Zika virus-specific immunoglobulin M in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) (nine infants), serum (two infants), or CSF and serum (two infants).

The children had other problems, also. Seven had epilepsy – another common diagnosis – and nearly all of them had a stiffening of the limbs called hypertonia.

The researchers said they did not know the mechanism of the postnatal microcephaly.

Current CDC research suggests that Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is strongly associated with zika; however, only a small proportion of people with recent zika virus infection get GBS. CDC officials say the latest findings further underscore the importance of screening pregnant women for Zika, conducting comprehensive medical and developmental follow-ups of babies whose mothers were exposed to the virus during pregnancy and following their children after birth. In addition, there have been 2,300 confirmed cases of microcephaly caused by the Zika virus infection.

The committee has now said that because research has since demonstrated the link between Zika infection and microcephaly in newborn babies, it felt that a “robust longer-term technical mechanism was now required to manage the global response”.

Physicians commonly detect microcephaly, a condition affiliated with the Zika virus, when babies are in the womb or first born.

Zika is spread primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito.

The newly lifted area runs from 28th Street to 63rd Street. That area was cleared in September. Can people contract Zika a couple of times?

Investigators are working to determine what proportion of Zika-infected women have babies with birth defects, and how the risk varies based on when during the pregnancy the infection occurred.

There’s no cure for Zika and the brain damage it causes is permanent. The CDC has advised pregnant women to avoid travel to the nearby neighborhood of Wynwood where mosquitoes are apparently transmitting Zika directly to humans. An additional Zika zone remains in the Little River neighborhood of Miami-Dade County. The authors were a team of researchers from Brazil and the United States.