Viruses (Nov 2022)

Would <i>Zika virus</i> Infection in Pregnancy Be a Sentence of Poor Neurological Prognosis for Exposed Children? Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in a Cohort from Brazilian Amazon

  • Marília Rosa Abtibol-Bernardino,
  • Lucíola de Fátima Albuquerque de Almeida Peixoto,
  • Marcia da Costa Castilho,
  • Camila Helena Aguiar Bôtto-Menezes,
  • Silvana Gomes Benzecry,
  • Rodrigo Haruo Otani,
  • Gabriela Ribeiro Ivo Rodrigues,
  • Beatriz Caroline Soares Chaves,
  • Geruza Alfaia de Oliveira,
  • Cristina de Souza Rodrigues,
  • Flor Ernestina Martinez-Espinosa,
  • Maria das Graças Costa Alecrim

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/v14122659
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 12
p. 2659

Abstract

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Infections with Flavivirus in pregnant women are not associated with vertical transmission. However, in 2015, severe cases of congenital infection were reported during the Zika virus outbreak in Brazil. More subtle infections in children born to mothers with ZIKV still remain uncertain and the spectrum of this new congenital syndrome is still under construction. This study describes outcomes regarding neurodevelopment and neurological examination in the first years of life, of a cohort of 77 children born to pregnant women with ZIKV infection in Manaus, Brazil, from 2017 to 2020. In the group of normocephalic children (92.2%), most showed satisfactory performance in neuropsychomotor development, with a delay in 29.6% and changes in neurological examination in 27.1%, with two children showing muscle-strength deficits. All microcephalic children (5.2%) evolved with severe neuropsychomotor-development delay, spastic tetraparesis, and alterations in the imaging exam. In this cohort, 10.5% of the children had macrocephaly at birth, but only 2.6% remained in this classification. Although microcephaly has been considered as the main marker of congenital-Zika-virus syndrome in previous studies, its absence does not exclude the possibility of the syndrome. This highlights the importance of clinical follow-up, regardless of the classification of head circumference at birth.

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