The balance sheet ofZika virus outbreak keeps getting heavier. The Brazilian Ministry of Health announced that the number of patients with the virus in its country had increased by 9.9% since last week and that the number of babies with microcephaly since the start of the epidemic, last October, was now 641 confirmed cases and 4,222 cases still under examination.
The Zika virus, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, causes mild flu-like symptoms (fever, headache, body aches). But it is also suspected, when he touches a pregnant woman, to cause a serious congenital malformation of the fetus, microcephaly (reduction of the cranial perimeter, harmful to intellectual development). But researchers have also just established that the virus can also trigger a serious neurological disorder: Guillain-Barré disease.
Learn more:our special file on the Zika virus