United States – Infants born with Zika virus in the womb could have their immune system impaired for the rest of their lives, research reveals.
The Zika virus is also reported to lead to microcephaly, brain impairments, and other complications in approximately 5% of children born to mothers who were affected with the Zika virus during pregnancy, scientists noted, as reported by HealthDay.
This study indicates that the majority of the 95% of children born of women infected with Zika during pregnancy might have been impacted by the virus in one way or the other, in forms that might impact them in the future.
Beyond Visible Symptoms
“The medical field has a very specific definition of congenital Zika syndrome. The children must have impaired skull or brain development,” said lead researcher Suan-Sin Foo, a maternal-fetal virologist with the Cleveland Clinic. “Our study clearly shows that there’s much more to this condition than meets the eye.”
To conduct the study, volunteers included the blood samples of newborn and 2-year-old children whose mothers were affected with the Zika virus in Brazil in 2015.
A study found that levels of inflammation were significantly higher even two years after the person was no longer actively infected by the Zika virus.
Their immune systems also predispose them to generate uniquely configured immune cells, which changes their reactions to childhood immunizations. This left them probably open to diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough, according to researchers’ findings.
The researchers also said that these immune problems were not associated with any other physical or neurological signs characteristic of Zika birth defects.
Another whole set of pregnancy-related Zika complications could have gone unnoticed because these long-term immune differences were not obvious in these children shortly, as pointed out by Foo.
“Studies have only really focused on what’s happening with the children who were born with visible physical conditions like microcephaly or neurological complications,” Foo said in a Cleveland Clinic news release.
Invisible Immune Issues in Zika-Exposed Children
“The rest of these kids may not even have a note on their chart mentioning that their mother was infected during pregnancy,” Foo added. “Unless they’re part of our study, they’re essentially lost to the medical field.”
Diagnostic Criteria and Further Research Needed
The new study was published in the journal eBioMedicine on 17th July.
The research team is now using molecular techniques to investigate how the Zika virus leads to these abnormalities in the immune system in development to prevent or reverse the effects of the Zika virus, as reported by HealthDay.
“We need to expand diagnostic criteria and conduct more research to make sure these immunologically vulnerable children get the care they need and stop falling through the cracks,” Foo said.