Afebrile, asymptomatic and non-thrombocytopenic Zika virus infection: Don't miss it!

Hydrocephalus associated to congenital Zika syndrome and shunting

“…Affected children may benefit from VP shunt insertion. These findings suggest a dual pathology association: fetal brain disruption and primary cortical malformation by the virus itself and hypertensive hydrocephalus [1].^The observation of hydrocephalus in infected infant is totally different from the finding in our country where the infected infant is usually asymptomatic [2] and the neuroimaging usually shows negative finding [3,4].…”

Zika virus disease: What to do and what to prepare at present?

“…The clinic and laboratory based surveillance may consist of all fever cases of service personnel reporting to the hospital. 1,2 Effective implementation of vector management strategies is crucial in prevention of Aedes borne diseases. r e f e r e n c e s 1 and was delighted to find such a concise yet scientifically exhaustive article on Zika virus.…”

“…The report based on which this announcement was made uses the Shepard's Criteria which includes the ''rare exposure-rare defect'' approach as well as the epidemiological approach for establishing causal association between prenatal exposure to an 'agent' and birth defects among neonates/infants. 2 Though the cases of Zika virus infection have been on record since 4-5 decades, it was only during the 2013 French Polynesian and the 2015 Brazilian outbreaks that its association with birth defects and GBS started to emerge. With Zika now fulfilling the Shepard's Criteria, the gold standard for teratogenicity, the period of reluctant speculation is over.…”

Congenital Zika virus infection in twin pregnancies

“…Indeed, the transplacental transmission of the Zika virus has been confirmed and direct cytopathology due to the virus is possible . Nevertheless, not all cases of infection will result in symptomatic clinical manifestation and most cases are usually asymptomatic 3 . In the case of identical twins exposed to the virus, if there is discordance of susceptibility, it might imply that there may be little or no role of the genetic background on susceptibility or resistance to the virus.…”