Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
Ten years after Brazil’s Zika epidemic, its children are still paying the price
A decade on from the outbreak, a second wave of complications is emerging in the ‘Zika babies’ born with severe defects
Lilia Sebouai
Global Health Security Reporter, in Recife.
Lucas Landau
Published 26 August 2026 6:00am BST
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Stephany is a “Zika baby”; one of more than 3,080 children born with Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS) following a devastating outbreak of the mosquito borne virus that swept Brazil in 2015-16. At least 444 of those children have died, mainly from respiratory and infectious diseases.
Like most of the surviving children from the cohort, she has suffered from an array of symptoms including microcephaly, severe cognitive and motor impairment, vision and hearing loss and seizures – which can occur up to ten times a day.
But a decade after the outbreak, a second wave of complications are emerging in children like Stephany.
As her therapist gently turns her in the pool, a pronounced bulge shows through the back of her pink and blue swim top. Over the last two years, her growing spine has been pulled 120-degrees into an S-shaped curve that is now crushing her lungs.
...
Dr Patricia Garcez, a neuroscientist at King’s College London who helped establish the link between Zika and brain defects in 2016, said that many of the “milder” CZS cases are now displaying severe autism and neurodevelopmental delay, or motor deficits caused by prenatal Zika exposure without severe microcephaly.
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It remains unclear whether Brazil is vulnerable to another Zika outbreak.
...
A study in Salvador, the capital of nearby Bahia state, found antibody protection dropped from 59 per cent to under 39 per cent within two years of the first outbreak.
Dr Marques estimates Brazil could see another outbreak resulting in children born with CZS within 15 to 20 years.
...
There is still no approved Zika vaccine or antibody treatment. The most advanced candidate has only just completed early-stage safety trials, and experts say a larger trial is nearly impossible without an active outbreak to test it.
Basic diagnostic tools also have major limitations. Standard antibody tests still cannot reliably distinguish Zika from dengue, and PCR testing – the only definitive testing method – is only effective for around five days at the peak of infections.
...
A decade on from the outbreak, a second wave of complications is emerging in the ‘Zika babies’ born with severe defects
Lilia Sebouai
Global Health Security Reporter, in Recife.
Lucas Landau
Published 26 August 2026 6:00am BST
...
Stephany is a “Zika baby”; one of more than 3,080 children born with Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS) following a devastating outbreak of the mosquito borne virus that swept Brazil in 2015-16. At least 444 of those children have died, mainly from respiratory and infectious diseases.
Like most of the surviving children from the cohort, she has suffered from an array of symptoms including microcephaly, severe cognitive and motor impairment, vision and hearing loss and seizures – which can occur up to ten times a day.
But a decade after the outbreak, a second wave of complications are emerging in children like Stephany.
As her therapist gently turns her in the pool, a pronounced bulge shows through the back of her pink and blue swim top. Over the last two years, her growing spine has been pulled 120-degrees into an S-shaped curve that is now crushing her lungs.
...
Dr Patricia Garcez, a neuroscientist at King’s College London who helped establish the link between Zika and brain defects in 2016, said that many of the “milder” CZS cases are now displaying severe autism and neurodevelopmental delay, or motor deficits caused by prenatal Zika exposure without severe microcephaly.
...
It remains unclear whether Brazil is vulnerable to another Zika outbreak.
...
A study in Salvador, the capital of nearby Bahia state, found antibody protection dropped from 59 per cent to under 39 per cent within two years of the first outbreak.
Dr Marques estimates Brazil could see another outbreak resulting in children born with CZS within 15 to 20 years.
...
There is still no approved Zika vaccine or antibody treatment. The most advanced candidate has only just completed early-stage safety trials, and experts say a larger trial is nearly impossible without an active outbreak to test it.
Basic diagnostic tools also have major limitations. Standard antibody tests still cannot reliably distinguish Zika from dengue, and PCR testing – the only definitive testing method – is only effective for around five days at the peak of infections.
...