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CLICK HERE - CDC Concludes Zika Causes Microcephaly and Other Birth Defects

CLICK HERE - NEJM - Zika Virus and Birth Defects — Reviewing the Evidence for Causality

It’s the first time US researchers have confirmed the link

theverge.com - by Loren Grush - April 13, 2016

For the first time, US disease experts have agreed that the mosquito-borne Zika virus does indeed cause babies to be born with abnormally small heads — a condition known as microcephaly. Until now, the two conditions were linked — but experts didn’t know for sure if Zika caused the brain-damaged condition. After reviewing existing data about Zika, researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have declared in the New England Journal of Medicine that the relationship was, as suspected, causal.

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With the Ebola outbreak over in Sierra Leone, Alpha Sesay has returned to school. The Red Cross volunteer is taking part in a joint project with UNDP to help reintegrate burial team members back into their communities.

Photo: Katherine Mueller - 1 April 2016

“Ebola, that was the name they gave us. Alpha Ebola,” says the 23-year-old. “Wherever you go, they will call you Ebola. Those Ebola boys are coming. That boy is part of a burial team. It was not really easy with us.

Recognizing the risk involved, members of the safe and dignified burial teams, all of them volunteers, received an additional financial incentive from the Red Cross. But that incentive, although appealing, came with its own set of challenges. “At first, I was saving some of the money,” explains Alpha. “Paying house rent. Feeding myself. I bought clothes. When my family realized that I had saved, they embraced me again.”

New data from ten late-breaking abstracts is released at ECCMID 2016 – the annual meeting of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease (ESCMID). At the congress, a dedicated session will examine recently released research across the full spectrum of infectious diseases both from a clinical and laboratory perspective.

Researchers presented recent data on a number of diagnostic tools to rapidly identify pathogens and therapies promising to treat challenging infections. The abstracts presented dealt with topics including meningitis, pulmonary tuberculosis, Zika and human papilloma virus.