Zika virus found to remain in some organs after disappearance from blood in macaques

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. and Canada has found that the Zika virus remains in some macaques’ organs and fluids, even after the immune system has removed it from the blood stream. In their paper published in the journal Nature Medicine, the researchers outline their study, detail their results and offer some thoughts on what they think should be done to learn more about the infection in people. The Zika virus has been in the news a lot over the past year after it was discovered to be causing severe birth defects in children born to infected women—mostly in South America. News that it was spreading led to research efforts to find a vaccine or a means to treat patients before it could cause more harm. In this new effort, the researchers sought to better understand the infection process in a close human substitute— macaques....