You are here

Home

First Zika-linked Microcephaly Case Identified in Harris County, Texas

Primary tabs

Wed, 2016-07-13 22:52 — Kathy Gilbeaux

click2houston.com - July 13, 2016 - (WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)

HOUSTON - A positive test result for an infant diagnosed with microcephaly at birth has been confirmed by Harris County Public Health. It's the first case in the county and in Texas.

The mother received inconclusive test results after traveling from Latin American. HCPH said since the infant tested positive, it's likely that the mother carried the virus while pregnant and was infected in Latin America.

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Country / Region Tags: 
Global
United States
General Topic Tags: 
Disease
Health
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 
Situation Report
Groups this Group Post belongs to: 
Global Health
- Private group -

Comments

Wed, 2016-07-13 23:09 — Kathy Gilbeaux

As described by the reporter within the video above, the mother was thought to be possibly infected with Dengue and Zika, but her test results were inconclusive.  The studies listed below might be able to shed some additional light on this topic.

ucsf.edu - by Laura Kurtzman - July 13, 2016

Symptoms of infection with the Zika virus in Brazil may be masked by simultaneous infection with other mosquito-spread viruses common in the same region — such as dengue fever and chikungunya viruses — pointing to the need for comprehensive testing, according to a study led by a UCSF expert in DNA-based diagnostics in collaboration with Brazilian researchers.

Using sophisticated genetic fingerprinting techniques that can identify multiple co-infections, a research team led by Charles Chiu, MD, PhD, associate professor of laboratory medicine and of medicine, and director of the UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center at UCSF, found two cases of co-infection with the chikungunya virus among 15 previously confirmed Zika cases from the state of Bahia, Brazil, diagnosed from April 2015 to January 2016.

“With these viruses, the symptoms associated with acute illness, including fever, rash, joint pains and conjunctivitis, are non-specific, so it is difficult to make an accurate diagnosis based on clinical findings alone,” Chiu said. “It’s easy to imagine a physician failing to detect Zika when they instead suspect a different virus that causes similar symptoms, and then their suspicion is confirmed by a diagnostic test designed to detect only that virus – they might easily miss a co-infection if they do not test for more than one virus.”

(READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

CLICK HERE - Co-Infections from Zika and Chikungunya Virus in Bahia, Brazil Identified by Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing

CLICK HERE - Clinical Manifestations of Zika Virus Infection, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2015

CLICK HERE - Genomic Assays for Identification of Chikungunya Virus in Blood Donors, Puerto Rico, 2014

Thu, 2016-07-14 17:47 — Kathy Gilbeaux

univision.com - July 14, 2016

Video - via Google Translate:

County health authorities Harris reported that the woman who gave birth to the first baby with microcephaly Texas was in Colombia in the first trimester of pregnancy.

http://www.univision.com/houston/kxln/noticias/virus-del-zika/la-madre-del-primer-bebe-con-microcefalia-en-texas-paso-parte-de-su-embarazo-en-colombia-video

Thu, 2016-07-14 17:56 — Kathy Gilbeaux

First Zika-Linked Microcephaly Case Has Been Identified in Harris County, Texas (1 page .PDF file)
http://publichealth.harriscountytx.gov/Portals/27/Documents/News/Zika_Micro_Press_7-13-16_.pdf?ver=2016-07-13-130439-127

Harris County Public Health - Press Releases
http://publichealth.harriscountytx.gov/Newsroom/Press-Releases

howdy folks