The Zika virus is responsible for the cases of fetal microcephaly. This is what researchers in the modeling of infectious diseases and epidemiology at the Institut Pasteur (Paris) have discovered. The scientists relied on data from the Zika epidemic in French Polynesia between September 2013 and July 2015.
An increased risk during the first trimester of pregnancy
During this period, they were able to establish that 7 cases of microcephaly out of the 8 recorded appeared in the four months following the epidemic, “indicating a strong temporal association between the epidemic and the occurrence of microcephaly“, specifies the Pasteur Institute in a press release. More precisely, the mathematical models used made it possible to understand that the period of pregnancy most at risk was the first trimester. Thus, 1% of fetuses whose mother contracts the Zika virusbetween the first month and the end of the third will be suffering from microcephaly. A risk 50 times greater than in the absence of infection with the Zika virus.
Protect pregnant women against the virus
This risk remains low compared to other fetal complications. For comparison, if a pregnant woman gets rubella during the first trimester of pregnancy, the risk of developing a fetal abnormality is 38-100%. But if rubella affects only 10 women per year in France, the number of Zika virus contaminations in South America and the West Indies can be counted in tens of thousands. “These results […] therefore confirm the need to protect pregnant women against the virus, and especially during the first trimester of pregnancy“, emphasizes the Institut Pasteur.
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