Zika virus ‘still a threat to mothers’

Up to 1.65 million women of child-bearing age in Latin America could still be at risk from the Zika virus, scientists have estimated.

Brazil is expected to shoulder the heaviest burden from the current epidemic, with more than three times the number of infections of any other country.

Researchers calculated how many people could become infected by the mosquito-borne virus in every five square kilometre region of Central and South America.

Their findings, published in the journal Nature Microbiology, show there could be more than 90 million infections before the current epidemic burns itself out. Professor Andrew Tatem, from the University of Southampton, is a member of the Anglofrench research team. He said: “These projections are an important early contribution to global efforts to understand the scale of the Zika epidemic, and provide information about its possible magnitude to help allow for better planning for surveillance and outbreak response.”

Zika has been associated withthebirthdefectmicrocephaly, which results in children being born with abnormally small heads and brain damage.