The CDC is launching a case-control study in Brazil in an effort to determine whether the association between Zika and microcephaly is real, reports NPR.
Eight teams of two American and Brazilian investigators will collect blood samples, test for Zika, gather information and examine the babies of 100 mothers who gave birth since the onset of the outbreak. They will also interview hundreds of mothers who gave birth to healthy babies during that time. The CDC hopes to use detailed information about potential factors that may have played an unexamined role in the birth defects collected through interviews, as well as identifying potential environmental factors, to compare the groups and learn more about the efficacy of a Zika-microcephaly link.
A link between the two was first suspected when cases of babies being born with the birth defect surged at the same time that Zika virus began to spread.
"[H]opefully from all this work we will glean some information that will be able to help us prevent other children from being born [with] microcephaly," J. Erin Staples, MD, PhD, a CDC medical officer, told NPR.
The teams will likely be collecting data for three to four weeks, at which time they will begin their analysis.