CDC Confirms Zika Virus as Cause for Microcephaly
It's no longer a question anymore on whether the Zika virus can or cannot cause the birth defect microcephaly in infants. According to a report by People, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued a confirmation already regarding the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly.
"We've now confirmed what mounting evidence has suggested, affirming our early guidance to pregnant women and their partners to take steps to avoid Zika infection and to health care professionals who are talking to patients every day," CDC director Tom Frieden said in a news release, as noted in New York Post.
The Zika virus, which is transmitted via the Aedes mosquitoes, has impacted nearly 5,000 children in Brazil already. The unborn infants are affected when the mother is infected during pregnancy, which in turn result to an abnormally small brain and head once they are born. When the disease first broke out, the link between the birth defect and the virus was only an assumption. Discovery News detailed that researchers needed enough evidence at that time to confirm that there is indeed a definite and direct relationship and not just a link or a coincidence.
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Medscape wrote in an article that experts have finally found the right amount of evidence to prove the relationship between Zika and microcephaly. The source also noted that the finding wasn't just from a single piece of evidence but on a group of indications that "satisfy two sets of formal scientific rules for determining causality, or whether a given agent causes a condition or disease." The research also debunked the theory about chemicals used in killing mosquito larvae as the reason for the outbreak of microcephaly.
In line with this, experts are hoping that people will have an increased awareness of the disease. There is currently no vaccines or treatment available for Zika but scientists are now working on it.
