Baby with Zika defects nation’s first

Canada’s public health agency is reporting the country’s first baby with “severe neurological congenital anomalies” resulting from the Zika virus.

Thousands of babies have been born with microcephaly (abnormal smallness of the head) and other birth defects since the Zika epidemic began in 2015 in Brazil, other parts of South and Central America, and elsewhere. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization declared the mosquitoborne virus a public health emergency of international concern.

Until this week, Canada had no reported cases in of birth defects related to Zika.

Public health officials are releasing no other information about the baby, including whether he or she is alive. It represents the second confirmed case of maternal-to-fetal transmission of the Zika virus in Canada.

The World Health Organization included the Canadian case in its Zika situation report released Thursday: “Canada is the latest country to report a case of congenital malformation associated with a travel-related case of Zika virus infection.” The WHO added that “probable location” of the infection is undetermined.

Last week, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Gregory Taylor confirmed another case in which the virus was transmitted from a mother, who was infected while travelling in the first trimester of her pregnancy, to her baby. That baby, which had traces of the Zika virus in the fluid around the brain, is normal, although being monitored, he said.

Although microcephaly and related neurological anomalies are the most visible signs of congenital Zika syndrome, damage to babies can be much more widespread, even in those whose heads are of normal size, health officials are finding.

Because of the risk, the federal government is warning women who are pregnant or thinking of becoming pregnant to avoid travel to places where the Zika virus is present — which includes a swath of South and Central America and the Caribbean. Last week, that warning was extended to include a section of Miami where there has been a cluster of Zika cases.

The revelation that Zika has caused birth defects in a baby comes as confirmed cases of the virus are steadily rising in Canada — from 187 a week ago to 205 as of Thursday, the Public Health Agency of Canada reports.

The vast majority of those cases were travel-related. Two were the result of sexual transmission. There have been 13 cases in pregnant women. The virus was transmitted to the fetus in two of those cases.

Steven Hoffman, associate law professor and director of the Global Strategy Lab at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Health Law, Policy & Ethics, said Canadians should not be surprised to hear the virus caused severe birth defects here.

Canada, Hoffman said, is among the most globalized nations in the world and Canadians travel a lot.

“We are one of the countries that will be most vulnerable to these kinds of threats. We knew it was only a matter of time.”