Map: projected number of Zika infections in childbearing womenUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTONBy the time the first wave of the current Zika outbreak is over, up to 1.65 million pregnant women in Central and South America could become infected with the virus, researchers from the WorldPop Project and Flowminder Foundation and their colleagues have estimated. In total, more than 90 million people could become infected throughout these regions and the Caribbean, with Brazil having more than three times the number of every other region, according to the team’s study, published today (July 25) in Nature Microbiology.
“These projections are an important early contribution to global efforts to understand the scale of the Zika epidemic, and provide information about its possible magnitude to help allow for better planning for surveillance and outbreak response, both internationally and locally,” study coauthor Andrew Tatem, director of WorldPop and the Flowminder Foundation, said in a statement. Estimates of the number of women at risk are complicated by the fact that up to 80 percent of infected people never show symptoms, Tatem added.
Another study suggests that merely delaying pregnancy may not be sufficient to reduce the risk of birth defects due to Zika virus infection, which has been linked to microcephaly and fetal death. Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health and colleagues modeled the ...
