Some infants with brain abnormalities may not be diagnosed because they have normal-sized heads instead of the tell-tale small skulls of those born with Zika-linked microcephaly, said one of the papers published by The Lancet. This meant that “newborns infected with the virus late in pregnancy may go unreported due to their head size being within normal range,” said study co-author Cesar Victora of the Federal University of Pelotas. Benign in most people, the mosquito-borne virus has been linked to microcephaly — a shrinking of the brain and skull — in babies, and to rare adult-onset neurological problems such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which can result in paralysis and death.
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New Zika diagnostics needed for babies, researchers say