As many as 10,000 pregnant women could participate in a massive new international study of the Zika virus, announced Tuesday by the National Institutes of Health.
NIH is working with Fiocruz, a research organization linked to the Brazilian Ministry of Health, to evaluate the severity of health risks the Zika virus poses to pregnant women and their developing fetuses and infants. Researchers plan to track participants through their pregnancies, observing whether they become infected with the virus and if so, the health complications they incur.
Researchers will start by enrolling women in Puerto Rico and then expand the study to include women in Brazil, Colombia and other areas where the virus is being locally transmitted. Women eligible to enroll must be at least 15 and in the first trimester of their pregnancy.
Zika is being actively transmitted in 60 countries and territories, although so far all cases in the U.S. have been linked to international travel. It’s known to cause microcephaly, a serious condition that causes infants to be born with abnormally small heads and possible neurological damage, but there are still many unanswered questions about the extent of the virus’ damange.
“The full scope of the effect of Zika virus in pregnancy has not yet been fully determined,” said National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci. “This large prospective study promises to provide important new data that will help guide the medical and public health responses to the Zika virus epidemic.”
To collect better information, researchers plan to closely monitor the participants by collecting monthly blood, saliva and vaginal swab samples and comparing birth outcomes between mothers infected with Zika and those who were not.
