Correlation between cephalic circumference at birth and ocular alterations in patients with microcephaly potentially associated with Zika Virus infection.

Abstract

The Zika virus (ZIKV) is an arbovirus isolated for the first time in 1947 and transmitted to humans by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. In Brasil, it was first detected in May 2015. Since then, ZIKV has been identified as the etiological agent of acute exanthematous disease in Brasil, and Neuropediatricians of the Recife warned about an epidemic of microcephaly, and the Brazilian Ministry of Health confirmed the association between ZIKV and Congenital malformations and neurological syndromes. The eye, as an extension of the developing brain, has been examined in patients with microcephaly and maternal history of ZIKV infection. Twenty newborn patients with microcephaly, whose mothers had presumed Zika virus during pregnancy, were analyzed through medical records. The nonparametric chi-square statistic was used to verify the association between head circumference and ocular alteration at a significance level of 0.0001. The significance of P = 0.000 in the value of non-parametric chi-square statistics was lower than the value of α = 0.0001, demonstrating that, at a level of 0.0001, there is an association between head circumference and ocular alteration. Although the knowledge of the natural evolution of the disease is still scarce, the current evidence is strong enough to establish a causal relationship between ZIKV infection during pregnancy and the increased incidence of the microcephaly and serious eye alterations that lead to the severe lower vision of these children.