Study finds that women have a higher risk of a Zika infection through sex.
The Zika virus led to a massive number of people getting infected across the world. Although it is more commonly spread through mosquitoes, sexual intercourse with an infected person can also lead to the infection of the other persons. A new study reveals that in this scenario, women have a higher risk than men of being infected.
Researchers from the Gladstone Institute performed a study regarding the transmission of the Zika virus through sex. According to, Shomyseh Sanjabi, the lead author of the study, and an investigator at the Gladstone research organization, the virus triggers a delay in the immune response of a woman’s genital organ. This delay is what allows the virus to mostly go undetected when it’s transmitted through sex. Their researchers’ finding support previous epidemiological studies which showed that women have a higher risk of a Zika infection.
If you’re not familiar yet with the Zika virus, then you should know that if infected, adults have mild symptoms which pass after a few days or weeks at most. However, the virus has long-term effects when it manages to infect pregnant women as it causes babies to be born with various birth defects like microcephaly, an abnormally small head, and brain. Cases of microcephaly in Brazil and the rest of South America have skyrocketed to several thousand since the outbreak of the virus back in 2015.
For their study, Gladstone researchers used female mice which were infected with the Zika virus either through mosquito bites or vaginally. In normal cases, the infection of a cell leads to the release of interferon. This molecule represents the body’s first defense against a variety of harmful pathogens. In its fight with the virus, interferon triggers a response from our immune system to attack the virus.
After three days of close examination of the mice infected with the Zika, researchers discovered that mice infected by mosquitoes had a much stronger response of their immune systems compared to those infected vaginally. Closer analysis revealed that the latter group of mice didn’t have any detectable levels of interferon in their genitalia.
The immune systems of this group of mice only began combating the virus only one week since the initial Zika infection, when it reached lymphoid tissues. After eventually eliminating the virus from their systems, researchers still found small traces of the virus in the mice’s vagina.
The study was published on November 16th in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
Image source: Wikipedia
Michael Turner
