It's the first thing in the morning at a crowded public health clinic in Joao Pessoa, Brazil, when a team of disease detectives from the United States and Brazil arrive.They are searching for new mothers in the hope of solving one of the world's most urgent public health mysteries: Is the Zika virus really causing microcephaly, a birth defect that leaves babies with shrunken heads and badly damaged brains?"The preponderance of evidence points to Zika being the culprit," says Megumi Itoh, an epidemic intelligence officer with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who is part of the four-member team. "But we don't know for certain yet. So this is one way of finding that out."The team, which also includes representatives from Brazilian federal and local health departments, is helping launch the biggest study yet of Zika and its suspected link to microcephaly. A total of eight U.S.-Brazilian investigative groups are working for the next few weeks to track down more than 100
↧