Yahoo News Singapore : declared in Zika caused twenty-fold spike in birth defects

They tracked the number of birth defects commonly seen among Zika-affected babies, including brain abnormalities and small head size or microcephaly, eye defects and other central nervous system problems. The study, published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality report, examined rates of birth defects in Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Georgia in 2012-2013 - before Zika's arrival in the Americas. During those years, birth defects on that list occurred in about 3 of every 1,000 birthsThey compared this with published rates of infants from a 2016 U.S. Zika registry and found the rates of these same birth defects were 20 times higher, occurring in nearly 60 of every 1,000 completed pregnancies with Zika infections. The increase emphasizes the ongoing risk of Zika during pregnancy, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. REUTERS/Ueslei MarcelinoBy Julie SteenhuysenCHICAGO (Reuters) - Rates of microcephaly and certain other birth defects were 20 times higher in pregnancies affected by Zika compared with pregnancies in years before the virus arrived in the Americas, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

Zika virus: CDC study estimates 20-fold increase in birth defects

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Certain birth defects were 20 times more prevalent in babies born to Zika virus–infected mothers in the U.S. in 2016 than they were before the virus cropped up in the United States, a CDC study suggests. The finding strengthens the evidence that a mother's Zika infection during pregnancy raises her baby's risk of microcephaly and other brain malformations. But from January to September 2016, 26 babies out of 442 born to mothers with suspected Zika virus infection during pregnancy showed these defects, according to data from the U.S. Zika Pregnancy Registry. Though the two datasets were collected using different measures and so aren't directly comparable, the findings bolster previous evidence suggesting that certain brain defects appear much more frequently in babies born to Zika-infected mothers. In that timeframe — before Zika appeared in the United States — microcephaly, brain abnormalities or another Zika-associated birth defect appeared in just 3 out of every 1,000 live births.


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