[2] An August 2016 study looking at the effect of
Zika infection on the adult brain suggests that adult brain cells responsible for replacing lost or damaged neurons throughout adulthood, cells that are likely critical to learning and memory, may be vulnerable to infection.
He and Ming are now using the cells to find out more about the effects of
Zika infection on the developing cortex.
«The cytopathic effects of
Zika infection on glioblastoma cells were observed most clearly after 48 hours.
In the near future, the researchers hope to grow mini-brains from the stem cells to observe the long - term effects of
Zika infection on neural tissue and to screen for potential therapeutics.
Not exact matches
But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other Democratic leaders say the bill is unacceptable in its present form, including a ban
on federal funding for Planned Parenthood in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory in the Caribbean that has reported nearly 2,000 cases of
Zika infection.
U.S. health officials
on Thursday recommended that pregnant women postpone nonessential travel to 11 Southeast Asian countries because of the risk of
Zika virus
infection, which has been shown to cause severe birth defects.
While
Zika has been far more prominent in tropical climates such as Puerto Rico and Brazil, where the 2016 Olympics will begin
on Friday, there have been more than 1,650 reported cases in the U.S., including the 14 new locally acquired
infections in Florida.
«Our findings suggest
Zika virus should be officially added to the list of congenital
infections,» said Thália Velho Barreto de Araújo of Brazil's Pernambuco University, who also worked
on the research team.
Earlier
on Friday, U.S. health officials published a study estimating that as many as 270 babies in Puerto Rico may be born with the severe birth defect known as microcephaly caused by
Zika infections in their mothers during pregnancy.
The risk of
Zika virus
infections at the Olympic Games is both low and manageable, the chief of the World Health Organization said
on Friday, a week before the event kicks off in Rio de Janeiro.
Those mice actually die from
Zika infection, making it difficult to study the natural transmission of the virus from father and mother to fetus and to assess the effect of this transmission
on the newborns.»
Zika induced changes that were more focused
on genes involved
on DNA replication and repair, indicating that
Zika infection disrupts cell replication more.
Beard explained that
Zika infections, like almost all diseases spread by mosquitoes, hinge
on two variables: infected hosts and capable carriers.
«Everyone was concentrating
on Zika and ignoring that there could be other
infections caused by mosquito bites.
«Thus, it is tempting to speculate that the alterations induced by
Zika virus
on the host cytoskeleton might be connected to the underlying physio - pathological mechanisms that link congenital
Zika virus
infections to microcephaly and neurodegenerative disorders.»
TIME LAG
Zika infections among pregnant women (solid line and scale
on left) in Colombia spiked in January (around week 4).
In the short term, as neither pharmacological treatment nor vaccines are available, prevention of
Zika infection relies
on protective measures against mosquito bites.»
«We undertook this study to understand the consequences of
Zika virus
infection in males,» said Michael Diamond, MD, PhD, a co-senior author
on the study and the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine.
To build their tool, Alison Galvani, from Yale University in New Haven, USA, and colleagues focused
on the two known serious consequences of
Zika infection: microcephaly, a condition in which children are born with a small brain causing mental impairment, and Guillain - Barré syndrome or GBS, a potentially fatal disease that can cause neural damage and paralysis.
Analyses using the tool suggest that proposed funds to combat
Zika in the US and other countries would be cost - effective, based
on quantification of the serious health conditions associated with
Zika infection.
Researchers developed an assessment tool to gauge severity of symptoms based
on duration of fever, degree of rash, how many parts of the body were affected and duration of symptoms during
Zika infection.
To investigate the impact of a prior
infection on the susceptibility to reinfection, researchers infected two groups of mice with
Zika.
They found that the TLR3 inhibitor significantly tempered
Zika virus» severe effects
on brain cell health and organoid size, underscoring TLR3's role linking
infection and brain damage.
New research in PLOS Pathogens
on Nov. 16, performed in mice, shows women who develop symptom - free
Zika infections may be able to acquire immunity that would protect them from future
infections and their offspring in a future pregnancy.
She said the study also suggests that co-
infection with chikungunya inhibits
infection of
Zika virus in the Aedes aegypti mosquito, meaning that one virus may outcompete another in mosquitoes, which could have an impact
on the epidemiology of two mosquito - borne viruses circulating at the same time.
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PAHO / WHO has been working with member countries for a number of years
on vector control and in the coming weeks will convene experts from throughout the Americas to discuss new, more effective and integrated mosquito control strategies that would help reduce not only
Zika infections but also cases of dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, and West Nile virus — all of which are spread by mosquitoes and are significant public health problems in the Americas.
Further, details
on the structural differences between E glycoprotein of
Zika virus and the same protein in dengue virus may make it possible to create diagnostic tests that can distinguish
Zika virus
infection from dengue
infection, a critical need in countries where both
Zika and dengue viruses are circulating.
«We have been working for three years to develop a better research model of brain development, and it's fortunate we can now use this one to shed light
on the major public health crisis posed by
Zika infections,» says Hongjun Song, Ph.D., professor of neurology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine's Institute for Cell Engineering.
In addition to her expert skill as a clinician, Dr. Frontera also has many research interests including identifying biomarkers and predictors of early brain injury and vasospasm / delayed cerebral ischemia after subarachnoid hemorrhage and their impact
on outcome; determining the efficacy of therapeutic strategies and developing guidelines for the management of patients with intracranial hemorrhage; evaluating the cost, length of stay, quality of life, functional and cognitive outcomes in a broader population of intracranial hemorrhage patients; developing guidelines for the integration of palliative care into the intensive care unit setting; and evaluating the relationship of
Zika virus
infection, Guillain - Barre, and other neurologic disorders.
«Those who have argued for the postponement of the Rio Olympics due to the risk posed by the ongoing
Zika virus epidemic base their argument
on two principal assumptions: 1) that the half a million visitors to Brazil will generate a substantial increase in exported
Zika infections, and 2) that some of these exports will seed outbreaks in other parts of the world.
«
On the face of it, this is very good news and a significant step towards developing an effective vaccine to prevent
Zika virus
infection and the horrendous complications that this virus can sometimes cause.
Based
on available evidence about similar conditions, an individual who becomes infected with
Zika is highly likely to have protection against future
Zika infections.
Zika infections among pregnant women (solid line and scale
on left) in the nation of Colombia spiked in January 2016 (around week 4).
Based
on that, we recommend using the term congenital
Zika syndrome instead of microcephaly associated with
Zika virus
infection, which involves a spectrum of changes, including other neurological and fetal development manifestations.
The
Zika virus is known to negatively impact the growth of fetal brains and a group of researchers publishing in the journal Cell Stem Cell have investigated the effect of
Zika on the adult brain reporting that
infection can lead to cell death and reduced proliferation.
This Factsheet has information
on Zika infection, complications and prevention.
Recent work has contributed to the characterization of antibodies that inhibit Chikungunya virus
infection and current work is focused
on Zika virus.
Zika virus
infection has spread to more than 45 countries in the Americas and 3 US territories, and, most recently, local transmission was confirmed in the continental United States in the state of Florida.11 Mosquito - borne transmission of ZIKV in other areas of the United States is possible based
on the estimated range of its vectors (Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus).12 Recognition of the CZS phenotype by pediatric clinicians will help ensure appropriate and timely evaluation and follow - up of affected infants.
Dr. Zhang and his colleagues at Emory, Johns Hopkins, and Florida State University focused
on the effects of the virus in hNPCs, which are highly susceptible to
Zika infection.
Based
on data from population - based birth defects surveillance programs for 2009 - 2013, the median prevalence of microcephaly in the United States was approximately 7 per 10000 live births.29 There are no published estimates of the prevalence of the birth defects potentially related to
Zika virus
infection during pregnancy combined.
The included birth defects were based primarily
on case reports of outcomes occurring in association with
Zika virus
infection during pregnancy; there is more evidence for some of these birth defects than for others, and a causal link has not been established for all.5,10,12,21 - 27 Because much of the focus to date has been
on microcephaly and brain abnormalities, data were summarized in 2 mutually exclusive categories: (1) brain abnormalities with or without microcephaly regardless of the presence of additional birth defects and (2) neural tube defects and other early brain malformations, eye abnormalities, and other consequences of central nervous system dysfunction among those without evident brain abnormalities or microcephaly.
This report describes the US
Zika Pregnancy Registry (USZPR) and the proportion of fetuses or infants with birth defects potentially associated with maternal
Zika virus
infection among women in the USZPR and evaluates whether the proportion with birth defects differs based
on the presence of maternal symptoms of
Zika virus
infection or by trimester of possible
infection.
Based
on the experience in French Polynesia, Willison estimates that the risk of Guillain - Barre syndrome in the general population during the outbreak in French Polynesia was 0.24 per 1,000
Zika virus
infections.
On Tuesday, local health officials in Texas confirmed a case of
Zika virus
infection that was transmitted by sex, and not by the bite of a mosquito.
The American Red Cross
on Wednesday asked potential blood donors who have traveled to areas where
Zika infection is active to wait 28 days before giving blood.
TUESDAY, Aug. 30, 2016 (HealthDay News)-- In yet another example of the damage that maternal
Zika infection can inflict
on a fetus during the early months of pregnancy, a new report suggests that close to 6 percent of these babies may also experience hearing loss.
A new case of locally transmitted
Zika infection was also reported in Tampa, health officials said
on Tuesday, although no travel advisory has yet been issued for that locale.
On Monday, the director of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Tom Frieden, announced that over the weekend more
infections of
Zika were identified in a small area in Miami - Dade County, just north of downtown.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued new recommendations that people who have been to areas of
Zika transmission, have possibly been exposed to the virus, or have a confirmed
Zika infection should be deferred from donating blood.