Developmental delays persist as Brazil’s Zika babies grow up

Researchers following a group of more than 100 Zika babies from Brazil report that 14 percent have experienced severe developmental problems. That means they’ve scored unusually low on cognition, motor, or language skill tests, or that they have visual or hearing impairment. "It was either both things or one or the other,” says Dr. Karin Nielsen-Saines, one of the authors of the new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study found that another 15 percent had moderate developmental delays, and a handful had microcephaly and were so profoundly impacted that the developmental tests couldn’t be carried out. Nielsen-Saines says she and her group plan to study the children until at least age 7 to see if the symptoms change over time.