ZIKA and Guillain-Barre Syndrome

[Michael Oberdorfer]

A recent article in The Washington Post describes a correlation between the ZIKA virus and Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder where the immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system which can result in temporary paralysis. The finding was originally published in The Lancet and is based on a retrospective study on blood samples from individuals infected recently by ZIKA in French Polynesia.
This work demonstrates the clinical research challenges the ZIKA outbreak poses.