Zika: Symptoms and Complications

Many people infected with Zika virus have no symptoms, or only mild ones. Illness usually lasts from several days to a week. The serious risks are to pregnancy — Zika can cause severe birth defects — and, rarely, to the nerves and brain.

Symptoms

The most common are:

• fever
• rash
• headache
• joint pain
• conjunctivitis (red eyes)
• muscle pain

Conjunctivitis — red eyes — is one of the common symptoms. CDC.

A skin rash caused by Zika. CDC.

The symptoms resemble those of other mosquito-borne viral diseases, such as dengue and chikungunya. Few people get sick enough to go to hospital, so many never realize they were infected. Death from Zika is very rare.

Complications

• Pregnancy. Infection during pregnancy can cause serious birth defects and is associated with other problems, including fetal loss, stillbirth and preterm birth.
• Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Rarely, Zika can trigger GBS, in which the immune system damages the nerves, causing muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis for a few weeks or several months. Most people recover fully, though some are left with permanent damage; very few die of GBS caused by Zika.
• Brain and spinal cord. In rare cases Zika causes severe disease: swelling of the brain (encephalitis), of the tissues around it (meningitis) or of the spinal cord (myelitis).
• Blood. Zika can also cause a blood disorder that leads to bleeding, bruising or slow clotting.

Hospitalization and death from Zika are uncommon.

Sources

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Zika Symptoms and Complications." https://www.cdc.gov/zika/signs-symptoms/index.html
• CDC, Congenital Zika syndrome and other birth defects: https://www.cdc.gov/zika/czs/index.html
• CDC, Guillain-Barré syndrome: https://www.cdc.gov/campylobacter/signs-symptoms/guillain-barre-syndrome.html