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Washington (AFP)
The vast majority of children whose mothers contracted the Zika virus during pregnancy are born without the dreaded symptoms of the disease, such as microcephaly. But a study of 70 seemingly normal young children at birth in Colombia reveals slight developmental delays.
The study, published Monday in the American journal Jama Pediatrics, followed 70 children born in 2016 and 2017, until their 18 months, in the Atlantico department of Colombia, in order to answer a question that haunts parents and researchers since the explosion of the epidemic in 2015/2016: are the 90 to 95% of babies whose mother had Zika and who seem normal at birth affected by Zika in more subtle ways?
These babies were a few months behind on average in the major stages of development: motor skills such as turning around, sitting, crawling, walking and climbing stairs, according to the study. They also develop social and cognitive delays, such as waiting for their turn to throw a ball, or playing “cuckoo”.
“For most babies, the effect is not very big,” Sarah Mulkey, a pediatric neurologist at the Washington Children’s Hospital who conducted the study, told AFP. “These are delays that you wouldn’t necessarily notice unless you did specific tests.”
These delays were rigorously measured via a questionnaire of 50 questions, administered twice to parents between 4 and 18 months.
Another standardized visual examination found a difference in motor skills in only part of the children: those whose ultrasound after birth had revealed small abnormalities in the brain, which usually do not cause concern and are not specific to Zika .
About a third of children had these abnormalities, such as small cysts in the brain, compared to an average of 2-5% in the population, says Sarah Mulkey. These children seemed to develop their motor skills a little late.
It is not known whether the delays will be caught up or worsen with age, as the researchers are only at the beginning of their understanding of Zika.
“It is not yet known how children will be affected at five or eight years of age, as none have yet reached these ages,” says Sarah Mukley.
“This shows that all babies exposed to Zika must be followed over the long term, whether they were normal at birth or not,” she said. “You have to follow them until they start school, and maybe longer, to understand the full impact of the virus on brain development.”
The researchers obtained new funding to follow these children up to five years of age.
© 2020 AFP
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