Abstract
Abstract Objectives: to describe preliminary data referred to epileptic seizures and the probability of occurring these epileptic seizures in the infants' first months of life with congenital Zika virus (ZIKV) syndrome. Methods: concurrent cohort study including newborns and infants with congenital Zika virus syndrome attended at the specialized outpatient clinic at IMIP, Recife, Pernambuco, from October 2015 to May 2016. Results: data on 106 infants were analyzed with confirmed or suspected association to ZIKV infection. Forty children (38.7%) presented an epileptic seizure, classified at 43.3% of the cases as being spasms, 22.7% as generalized tonic seizures, 20.5% as partial and 4.5% other types of seizures. The median of days until the first report on the occurrence of epileptic seizure was 192 days of life. Conclusions: children with congenital Zika virus syndrome presented a high incidence of epileptic seizures before the end of the first semester of life, and spasm was the epileptic seizure mostly observed.
Highlights
The change in the epidemiological pattern of newborns with microcephaly was observed mainly in the Northeast of Brazil, where an increase of cases were reported since August 2015
Patients who presented cephalic perimeter (PC) or occipito-frontal circumference compatible to microcephaly were included in the study, according to the criteria initially determined by the Executive Secretary of Surveillance in Health (SEVS) of the Secretary of Health in Pernambuco (SES/PE), and by the Brazilian Ministry of Health (MS) and the World Health Organization (OMS/WHO), and/or patients suspected of fetopaty by Zika Virus (ZIKV), born at IMIP or those who came from other centers and those that had a multi-professional follow up at IMIP for diagnostic investigation.[8]
Of 109 infants, 106 data were analyzed by confirmed diagnosis or suspected association to ZIKV infection, three of these patients were considered as loss (2.8%) because they did not return to the outpatient clinic even after the social services made continuous contacts
Summary
The change in the epidemiological pattern of newborns with microcephaly was observed mainly in the Northeast of Brazil, where an increase of cases were reported since August 2015. Until March 2016, the Brazilian Health Ministry received a notification of 6776 suspected cases 1,489 were confirmed.[1,2] Pernambuco was the Brazilian State with the highest occurrence of microcephaly cases at this period.[3,4]. An infected outbreak in pregnant women by Zika Virus (ZIKV), a flavivirus transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquito, was associated to congenital microcephaly, one of the components of congenital Zika virus syndrome.[5,6] ZIKV presents a tropism by the development of the nervous cells. The neurological manifestations of these patients were not yet well described and epileptic seizures have been frequently reported by caregivers
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