PARIS: Scientists on Tuesday said they had confirmed that the Zika virus sweeping Latin America and blamed for severe birth defects can also trigger a dangerous neurological disorder.
In a study published in the medical journal The Lancet, a team probed Zika’s suspected role in a 2013-2014 outbreak in French Polynesia of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) — a rare condition in which the body’s immune system attacks a part of the nervous system that controls muscle strength.
Research into patients who fell ill with GBS, supported by blood tests, proved that the mosquito-borne virus was the culprit, they said.
