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An international study of primates suggests that many women may have lost their baby during pregnancy because of zika, without knowing that they have been infected with the virus.
Research published on Monday Nature Medicine found that 26% of monkeys infected with zika in early pregnancy had a miscarriage or had stillbirths, even if they were born in the first place.
According to the authors, to date, human studies have only measured the number of abortions in women with symptoms of the disease. One of them, conducted earlier this year, showed that 6% of women infected and badyzed by the scientists aborted, while 1.6% had stillbirths. A miscarriage occurs when the baby is lost before growing up for 20 weeks in the womb.
According to lead author of the study, Dawn Dudley of the National Primate Research Center in Wisconsin, the discovery has important implications for pregnant women infected with the virus. "Pregnancy loss occurs more frequently in infected primates than in animals that have not been exposed to the virus," she said.
The results, she said, raise concerns about the loss of pregnancies which may be more common than previously thought. The scientist says studies done so far with humans have very limited results because they are based solely on symptomatic infections. "Women participate in these studies precisely because they have zika symptoms, but we know that more than half of the people infected with the virus had no type of symptoms."
The study, composed of 50 monkeys of different species, five other primate research centers and ten American universities. During the gestation of monkeys infected with zika, scientists monitored the animals' progress by ultrasound to detect fetal heart rate, amniocentesis – a diagnostic method involving drainage of amniotic fluid – and blood tests.
In US labs, scientists were able to control the time and method of infection in a way that would be impossible in human studies, according to Dawn. As a result, it was possible to monitor the progress of the infection in animals and their fetuses.
Microcephaly
For another of the authors, David O Connor of the University of Winsonsin-Madison, indicate that abortion and stillbirths can be problems even more recurrent among mothers infected with zika than conbad malformations such as microcephaly. "In this case, we will have to reconsider what we know about zika". The information comes from the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo
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