A study led by Cleveland Clinic and published in eBioMedicine shows that maternal Zika virus infections can alter fetal immune development, leading to long-term consequences for children's immunity. These changes occur even in children born without the physical features associated with congenital Zika syndrome – suggesting that the 95% of babies born to Zika-infected mothers who showed no symptoms may have been affected by the virus with long-term immunological consequences.
Only 5% of children whose mothers had Zika infection during pregnancy are born with physical or neurological disabilities and diagnosed with congenital Zika syndrome. Suan-Sin (Jolin) Foo, PhD, a world-renowned expert in maternal-fetal virology and the Zika virus, says babies without these symptoms are considered healthy and do not receive further medical attention or care.
“Studies have so far only focused on what happens to the children born with visible physical conditions like microcephaly or neurological complications,” she says. “For the remaining children, it might not even be in their medical record that their mother was infected during pregnancy. If they are not part of our study, they are essentially lost to medicine.”
