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submitted by John Carroll

A woman who is six months pregnant shows a photo of her ultrasound at the IMIP hospital in Recife, Pernambuco state, Brazil, on Wednesday. Scientists are trying to figure out how Zika virus may be affecting fetuses.  Felipe Dana/AP

CLICK HERE - NEJM - Zika Virus Infection in Pregnant Women in Rio de Janeiro — Preliminary Report

npr.com - by Rob Stein - March 4, 2016

The Zika virus has sparked international alarm largely because of fears that the pathogen is causing microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with unusually small heads and damaged brains.

But the preliminary results of a study released Friday suggest Zika can also cause other potentially grave complications for fetuses carried by women who get infected while they are pregnant.

"There seems to be a whole spectrum of conditions that are related to this — not only microcephaly," says Karin Nielsen-Saines, a professor of clinical pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA who led the study.

Image: A village hosting internally displaced people in Mora, Cameroon, where Boko Haram fighters have conducted raids on livestock. The hunt for food appears to be pushing the militants deeper into Cameroon. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

nytimes.com - March 4th 2016 - Dionne Searcey

At first, the attack had all the hallmarks of a typical Boko Haram assault. Armed fighters stormed a town on the border with Nigeria, shooting every man they saw.

But this time, instead of burning homes and abducting hostages, the fighters gathered cows, goats and any kind of food they could round up, then fled with it all.

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Group Leader, Dr Masafumi Inoue of Agency for Science Technology and Research's (A*STAR) Experimental Therapeutics Centre shows a sample to be tested with the Zika virus diagnostic test kit at their laboratory in Singapore, February 10, 2016. REUTERS/EDGAR SU

CLICK HERE - STUDY - The Lancet - Guillain-Barré Syndrome outbreak associated with Zika virus infection in French Polynesia: a case-control study

reuters.com - by Kate Kelland - February 29, 2016

French scientists say they have proved a link between the Zika virus and a nerve syndrome called Guillain-Barre, suggesting countries hit by the Zika epidemic will see a rise in cases of the serious neurological condition.

Guillain-Barre (GBS) is a rare syndrome in which the body's immune system attacks part of the nervous system. . . .

. . . "The regions which are affected by the Zika virus epidemic are likely to see a significant increase in the number of patients with serious neurological complications, and when possible, should increase the capacity of health-care facilities to receive patients needing intensive care."

Image: A 2-month old baby, born with microcephaly, is examined by a neurologist at the Pedro I hospital in Campina Grande, Brazil. Felipe Dana/AP

statnews.com - February 25, 2016

A stillbirth in Brazil is offering another clue to possible health effects of the Zika virus, this time beyond the developing brain.

In addition to a devastating loss of brain tissue, this fetus also had another abnormality — severe swelling and fluid build-up in other parts of the body — that by itself can be life-threatening, researchers reported Thursday.

Researchers found the Zika virus in the fetus even though the mother didn’t report any symptoms of infection, according to the case report published in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

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