Laboratory testing in infants with neurologic abnormalities potentially related to congenital ZIKV infection
A total of 16/19(84.2%) infants were tested for other congenital infections and were negative for enterovirus (10), parvovirus (12), HSV-I (13), HSV-II (13), and HHV-6 (4). Two dichorionic twins had CMV infection and received antiviral treatment.
Anti-ZIKV IgM was done in 14/17(82.4%) infants who survived with features potentially related to ZIKV infection. Of these, only four (28.6%) were positive. One had a previous positive ZIKV-PCR in amniotic fluid, and two had a positive ZIKV-RNA PCR in necropsy tissues26. Only five of these infants were submitted to ZIKV-RNA testing in serum, but no positive test was identified. Thus, congenital ZIKV infection could be laboratory-confirmed in only 7/17(41.2%) infants (Table 2 footnotes).