Top Zika investigators now believe that the birth defect microcephaly and the paralysing Guillain-Barre syndrome may be just the most obvious maladies caused by the mosquito-borne virus.
Dr. Carlos Pardo-Villamizar, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is studying Zika complications with colleagues in five Colombian research centres. They have seen cases of encephalitis, myelitis and facial paralysis associated with Zika and want to understand what is triggering these complications.
They also want to study whether prior infection with dengue or chikungunya – two related viruses – are contributing to neurological disorders seen in patients with Zika.
Scientists are turning their attention next to Puerto Rico, where Zika is expected to infect hundreds of thousands of residents by year-end.
More cases hold the potential for “a better sense of the full spectrum of disease that Zika is capable of causing,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Source:LiveScience
Source: http://www.livescience.com/53541-reported-cases-of-zika-virus-worldwide-infographic.html
