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Brain Damage in Zika Babies Is Far Worse Than Doctors Expected
Researchers say the Zika virus attacks lobes of the fetal brain that control thought, vision, movement
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By LUCIANA MAGALHAES and BETSY MCKAY
April 28, 2016 12:06 p.m. ET
SALVADOR, Brazil?...
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?These aren?t just microcephaly, like a slightly small head. The brain structure is very abnormal,? said Jeanne Sheffield, director of maternal-fetal medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who has been counseling pregnant women about microcephaly for two decades.
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The sickest Zika babies in Brazil have died before delivery or within hours of birth. No one knows yet how long the survivors will live or how much they can be helped in the years ahead.
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Brazil is now bracing for a second stage of the 6-month-old crisis: Caring for infants with a wide range of disabilities. Experts have begun calling the constellation of maladies linked to the virus Congenital Zika Syndrome?to describe the babies born with disabilities more severe than in textbook microcephaly cases. Often, liquid fills the spaces where there is no brain tissue.
?There are areas of the brain that aren?t even formed,? said Janeusa Primo Chagas, head of neuropediatrics at the hospital operated by Sister Dulce, a philanthropic organization, where Dr. Paschoal also works.
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Many of the 130 infants in the care of Drs. Chagas and Paschoal may never learn to talk or walk, Dr. Chagas said. Some will have trouble seeing. Many could develop epilepsy.
?It?s safe to say almost all of them will require long-term, continual care,? said Edwin Trevathan, professor of neuroscience at Baylor University and a former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?s national center on birth defects and developmental disabilities.
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Scientists are trying to understand how a virus that has appeared benign since first identified nearly 70 years ago could now pose such a grave risk.
One possibility, they say, is that serious complications went mostly unnoticed as the virus spread from Africa to Asia and the Pacific islands. Infections might have passed largely through poor countries without effective disease tracking, or the outbreaks could have been much smaller, making complications harder to spot.
Scientists are also exploring whether mutations developed in the virus that made it more virulent or easily transmissible as it moved around the world.
...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/brain-d...is-far-worse-than-doctors-expected-1461859591
Researchers say the Zika virus attacks lobes of the fetal brain that control thought, vision, movement
...
By LUCIANA MAGALHAES and BETSY MCKAY
April 28, 2016 12:06 p.m. ET
SALVADOR, Brazil?...
...
?These aren?t just microcephaly, like a slightly small head. The brain structure is very abnormal,? said Jeanne Sheffield, director of maternal-fetal medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who has been counseling pregnant women about microcephaly for two decades.
...
The sickest Zika babies in Brazil have died before delivery or within hours of birth. No one knows yet how long the survivors will live or how much they can be helped in the years ahead.
...
Brazil is now bracing for a second stage of the 6-month-old crisis: Caring for infants with a wide range of disabilities. Experts have begun calling the constellation of maladies linked to the virus Congenital Zika Syndrome?to describe the babies born with disabilities more severe than in textbook microcephaly cases. Often, liquid fills the spaces where there is no brain tissue.
?There are areas of the brain that aren?t even formed,? said Janeusa Primo Chagas, head of neuropediatrics at the hospital operated by Sister Dulce, a philanthropic organization, where Dr. Paschoal also works.
...
Many of the 130 infants in the care of Drs. Chagas and Paschoal may never learn to talk or walk, Dr. Chagas said. Some will have trouble seeing. Many could develop epilepsy.
?It?s safe to say almost all of them will require long-term, continual care,? said Edwin Trevathan, professor of neuroscience at Baylor University and a former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?s national center on birth defects and developmental disabilities.
...
Scientists are trying to understand how a virus that has appeared benign since first identified nearly 70 years ago could now pose such a grave risk.
One possibility, they say, is that serious complications went mostly unnoticed as the virus spread from Africa to Asia and the Pacific islands. Infections might have passed largely through poor countries without effective disease tracking, or the outbreaks could have been much smaller, making complications harder to spot.
Scientists are also exploring whether mutations developed in the virus that made it more virulent or easily transmissible as it moved around the world.
...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/brain-d...is-far-worse-than-doctors-expected-1461859591