The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has affirmed that the Zika infection causes extreme birth imperfections, including microcephaly.
Many infants were conceived in Brazil a year ago with microcephaly, a disorder where kids are conceived with curiously little heads.
The defects coincided with a spike in Zika infections, leading experts to suspect the mosquito-borne virus.
Research has now affirmed those experts' suspicions, the CDC said.
"This study marks a turning point in the Zika outbreak. It is now clear that the virus causes microcephaly," said Dr Tom Frieden, the head of the CDC.
On Monday, US wellbeing authorities cautioned the Zika flare-up could have a greater amount of an impact on the United States and called for extra subsidizing to battle the infection.
"All that we think about this infection is by all accounts scarier than we at first thought," said Dr Anne Schuchat of the CDC.
Zika virus was first diagnosed in 1947 in Uganda, but symptoms have typically been mild, including rash, joint pain and fever.
The current outbreak started in 2015 in Brazil and the symptoms have been much more severe. Nearly 200 babies have died as result of the virus.
Researchers are interesting learning why some cases of the virus result in birth defects while others do not.
A few ladies who were contaminated with Zika while pregnant brought forth evidently solid kids.
There have been 346 affirmed instances of Zika in the mainland United States, as indicated by the CDC, all connected with travel.
CDC authorities said the discoveries don't change the organization's prior direction to pregnant ladies.
The CDC has debilitated pregnant ladies from venturing out to spots where the Zika infection is spreading, for the most part in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Dr Frieden said intensive research was under way to find out much more about the mosquito-borne virus and to develop a vaccine for it, although he warned that that could still be years away.
This is the first time that mosquito bites have caused birth defects, Dr Frieden said. The virus can be transmitted by sexual contact as well.
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