After Brazil, Zika virus threatens Colombia. The country has just announced its first case of microcephaly, a birth defect suspected to be related to Zika.
Scientists have “diagnosed microcephaly in a newborn baby and two others with congenital brain abnormalities.” They all tested positive for the presence of the Zika virus.
This case comes as no surprise to researchers. The Zika virus, transmitted by the Aedes-type tiger mosquito, landed in September and Colombia is the second most affected country after Brazil with tens of thousands of cases (against 1.5 million in Brazil).
This news could well herald the start of a series of microcephaly in Colombian newborns, anticipate researchers from the Colombian network against Zika (RECOLZIKA) in the journal Nature. Alfonso Rodriguez-Morales, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Pereira Technological University in western Colombia, says he expects cases of Zika-related birth defects to rise in the next two to three months.
A confirmed link between Zika and microcephaly
This announcement comes as researchers have just established in the journal Cem Stell
the first scientific proof of a link between the virus and microcephaly in the fetus. The virus has been shown to target cells involved in the development of the cortex of the brain.
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