Babies Born With Zika May Have More Medical Issues Than Microcephaly

Since the Zika virus started making news early last year there has been extensive coverage on the birth defects that Zika causes in newborns. The birth defect known as microcephaly has so far been the only medical condition experienced by newborns infected with Zika. Now it is looking as though microcephaly is not the only devastating congenital disorder afflicting infected babies born to infected mothers.

The new set of physical malformations observed in newborns infected with Zika include: gaps and lesions in the skull, malformations in the cerebellum, and other medical issues that will likely result in causing premature death. In response to these findings many doctors want to adopt the term “congenital Zika syndrome” since the maladies that result from a Zika exposed fetus are so numerous that a new term needs to be adopted to refer to these wide-ranging maladies.

Do you believe that the term “microcephaly” is insufficient to define the number of congenital defects occurring simultaneously in infants infected with Zika?