Magnitude of Neurological Complications in Zika Virus Infected Thai Cases

Dear Editor,

Zika virus infection is an important problem in today’s medicine. The neurological complications due to the infection are highly concerned. In the case of transplacental transmission, the congenital neurological defect can be observed in infants born to infected mothers. The 1st report of a cluster of babies with neurological problems from Brazil attracted the attention of worldwide medical scientist. The child with microcephaly was the big complication of the infection that led to the present worldwide concern about Zika virus infection. The neurological deficit in cases with congenital disease and also the Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), after Zika virus infection, can be observed in the infected Brazilian adults. In the affected non-pregnant adults, neurological complications due to the infection were reported in some cases. In Thailand, a Southeast Asian country, the Zika virus infection already existed (1). The current paper summarized the magnitude of neurological complications in Thai cases infected with Zika virus. The included cases were officially diagnosed and confirmed by the standard molecular diagnosis technique, and recorded in the database of Thai Center of Disease Control. The record was conducted from 2015 to 31 October 2016. From the overall 97 accumulated cases, no case with neurological problem (based on abnormal clinical neurological science and/or abnormal neurological imaging finding) was observed during the course of acute infection. To date, the follow-up of all infected cases shows no case with late complication. The interesting finding was that no case with abnormal neurological imaging was observed. The null prevalence of neurological problems in adults and infants born to infected mothers seems to be an interesting subject for further studies. In fact, the asymptomatic infection is usually common in Asia and it is totally different from that of America (2).