More of 6,000 babies they were born in Brazil with microcephaly because of the infection of their mothers by the Zika virus, and will continue to happen as long as there is no way to control the virus and prevent the babies of the affected women from suffering from the malformation.
Microcephaly severely affects your life, as it severely limits the baby's brain development and consequently limits their abilities with respect to other children.
At the moment there is no way to control it because there are no medications or vaccines for it, but the accident has meant that they have found a new way of investigation in twins in which one is born affected and the other healthy.
Laura and Lucas, the twins who could have the answer
They are not the first twins that are being studied, but they have directly entered the group of babies who might have the answer: five pairs of twins in which one is healthy.
When doctors told Jaqueline Jessica Silva de Oliveira that one of her babies would have microcephaly and the other didn't think they were wrong, that it couldn't be, that they would both be fine. But no, they confirmed what he feared most, and he felt that the world was falling at his feet, as we read in Antena3.
The babies were born in November and while Lucas was born healthy, Laura suffers from microcephaly and requires special attention from neurologists and physiotherapists, who will do the possible and the impossible to ensure that the child has the best possible development.
But of the two, it is Luke the one that awakens more unknowns in the researchers:why was born healthy If the Zika virus infection was confirmed at the beginning of pregnancy?
The three new research routes
Thanks to the case of Luke and four more babies in the same situation the researchers have opened three new research channels In the search for an antidote or vaccine that can prevent infection or treat it early before the malformation occurs:
- Study if the placenta of the affected twin could be permeable to the Zika virus and that of the healthy twin could not.
- Study if the virus penetrates both placentas and are the healthy baby's neurons those that are not affected by the virus.
- Research the genome of the two children, in case there are genes that predispose to microcephaly that are affected in the presence of the Zika virus.
Three research channels that show us that we are still in the beginning, that the thing is still very green, but that they could give an answer from which to work later in a hurry in the way of replicating the reason that made these five children born healthy, despite the infection of their mothers in pregnancy.
Photos | Reuters through DailyMail
In Babies and more | Worrying increase in babies born with a small head because of Zika virus, WHO declares global health emergency due to microcephaly in newborns linked to Zika virus, WHO rules out the spread of Zika virus through breastfeeding
