Scientists say they’ve confirmed that the Zika virus can cause Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare but severe neurological disorder that kills 5 percent of people who develop it. Authorities in countries with a Zika outbreak should make sure they have enough intensive care beds to deal with an increase of patients with Guillain-Barré.
In a 2013 outbreak, 32,000 people were assessed for a suspected Zika infection in
French Polynesia. That’s where today’s study subjects came from. Almost all 42 patients with Guillain-Barré had signs of a recent Zika infection in their blood. In addition, 37 of those patients said that they had symptoms of Zika six days before they experienced symptoms of Guillain-Barré. The results suggest that Zika should be added to the list of infectious pathogens that can cause Guillain-Barré, the researchers write in The Lancet.
"Until now, everything was anecdotal," says Lee Norman, an intelligence officer in disaster medicine planning in the United States Army National Guard, who didn’t work on the study. This is "the first time that I've had confidence that there’s a definitive link between Zika and Guillain-Barré syndrome."
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