One form of transmission for the Zika virus is the vertical form, and this article takes us to Brazil where it goes through the effect of the Zika virus on the fraternal twin babies of a woman that was exposed to Zika-infected mosquitoes during the time of her pregnancy. What was interesting about this case was that only one of the fraternal twins was symptomatic, as he was born with microcephaly. The other twin, his sister, was perfectly healthy.
Twin cases are fascinating because they have a lot of similarities from their genetics to their general environment, which allows researchers to extrapolate data that they otherwise would not be able to. Out of the known cases of twins exposed to Zika virus through the mother, both sets of identical twins had brain damage. However, in six out of seven cases of fraternal twins, only one of the twins suffered from brain damage while the other one was normally functioning.
Throughout the rest of the article, the writer highlights the extreme poverty that the family with the fraternal twins was in and how they were essentially incapable of caring for this child in need, leading them to give the child to another caretaker.
- Eyasu Kebede
- Eyasu Kebede
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