The Zika Virus May Have Caused More Miscarriages Than Microcephaly

When Zika first appeared in Brazil in 2015 many women were birthing children with microcephaly. It did not take researchers long to find a link between microcephaly and Zika infection. The high rate of newborns with microcephaly was troubling to researchers and fear spread throughout the country. Brazil quickly enacted a national health emergency. But now researchers in Brazil are saying that the Zika virus may have caused more miscarriages than women having children with microcephaly.

According to Dr. Benedito Fonseca, a professor of internal medicine at the School of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto in Sao Paulo, in 2015 Brazilians were truly terrified of the virus that nobody had ever heard of. In 2015, nobody in Brazil knew how big of a problem Zika was going to become. According to Dr. Fonseca, during this time, women were frantic to find out what was going to come of their pregnancies. At the time there was very little known about the effect that Zika would have on babies. What the public has not even heard about until now is that the Zika virus did not just cause microcephaly, but it also seemed to have resulted in an increase in miscarriages. In order to shed more light on this trend Dr. Fonseca visited more than twelve hundred women living in Ribeirão Preto. He discovered that out of 178 Zika infected pregnant women, nine had miscarraiges and only four gave birth to babies with microencephaly. According to Dr. Fonseca, the severity of the virus gaven the women miscarriages. In other words, the virus was so serious and advanced that the pregnencies just ended because the body could not handle the stress. Dr. Fonseca never expected to find a higher rate of miscarriages than microencephaly. Dr. Fonseca’s findings will be presented at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene’s annual convention in Baltimore.

Does it surprise you that the Zika virus ended up causing a lot of miscarriages in Zika infected women?