Congenital syndrome associated with Zika virus infection among live births in Brazil: a description of the distribution of reported and confirmed cases in 2015-2016.

OBJECTIVE

to describe the temporal and spatial distribution of reported and confirmed cases of congenital Zika virus syndrome (CZS) in live births in Brazil during 2015-2016.

METHODS

we conducted a descriptive study with data from the Public Health Events Registry, including cases born in 2015 or 2016, and registered between epidemiological week 45/2015 and 2/2017.

RESULTS

we analyzed 9.953 reported cases, of which 2.018 (20.3%) were confirmed and 2.819 (28.3%) were still under investigation at the epidemiological week 2/2017; 404 (4.1%) out of the 9.953 cases had laboratory confirmation for Zika virus; the prevalence of confirmed cases of CZS was 3.8/10 thousand livebirths in 2015 and 3.1/10 thousand live births in 2016.

CONCLUSION

one fifth of the cases reported in 2015-16 were confirmed the CZS, reinforcing their relevance as a public health problem; efforts aimed at the diagnostic confirmation of the syndrome should be prioritized.