Zika Babies At Risk of Developing Glaucoma

Well the news for infants born from mothers infected with the Zika virus just keeps getting worse. Doctors recently came across an infant that showed no signs of glaucoma at birth, but at three months old began to show signs of swelling, pain, and tearing in his right eye, which ended up being diagnosed as glaucoma. Glaucoma is now yet another serious symptom of the Zika virus infection that doctors need to watch out for as infected infants develop. That isn’t the only bad news, however.

Doctors also recently found that infants of infected mothers may actually be born with no apparent defects, but develop signs of defects such as microcephaly and other brain abnormalities later on as they grow. Scientists monitored 13 Zika infected infants in a recent study that showed no signs of brain abnormalities and had normal head sizes at birth. However, all 13 babies experienced slower head growth as they matured, and 11 of the babies ended up being diagnosed with microcephaly as well as other neurological abnormalities. This just goes to show that we still have a lot to learn about the Zika virus, which will likely continue to reveal new health problems associate with it. It seemed pretty benign at first, but this virus is sneaky, slowly revealing just how devastating it can be months after someone is infected.

What other health problems do you think doctors will discover the Zika virus causes as we continue to study it?