Chinese team cracks Zika secret
Recently, a research team of scientists from the United States and Brazil published a finding in Nature, showing that the Brazilian Zika virus strain could lead to birth defects.
But the Chinese research went further, Xu said. The most surprising finding was that it was mostly neural progenitor cells that became infected at the beginning, and mostly neurons infected at a later stage, five days after injection, when the presence of Zika virus increases several hundredfold."However, almost all cell deaths were found in neurons other than neural progenitor cells," Xu said. "This indicates that neurons, not neural progenitor cells, are prone to induced cell death by the Zika virus."
Xu said he hoped the finding would lay a good foundation for further research and control of the virus. The animal model, together with the global data sets of infected brains, "will provide valuable resources for further investigation", he said.
Contact the writers at zhaoxinying@chinadaily.com.cn
Symptoms generally mild
Zika is a virus that is primarily spread by mosquito bites. In general, the symptoms known to be caused by the virus tend to be mild. They include fever, rash, pain in the joints and pink eye. Symptoms usually occur two to seven days after infection. Many people who are infected do not show any symptoms, and those who do can be treated easily. Zika was first found in Africa and spread to Asia and Latin America. The virus is spreading rapidly in Latin America, while Thailand and the Philippines are the most Zika-infected countries in Asia.
