Health Effects & Risks

Zika virus disease is generally mild, and severe disease requiring hospitalization and deaths are uncommon.
Zika infection during pregnancy can cause serious birth defects and is associated with other pregnancy problems.
Rarely, Zika may cause Guillain-Barré syndrome, an uncommon sickness of the nervous system in which a person’s own immune system damages the nerve cells, causing muscle weakness, and sometimes, paralysis.
Very rarely, Zika may cause severe disease affecting the brain, causing swelling of the brain or spinal cord or a blood disorder which can result in bleeding, bruising or slow blood clotting.

Zika infection during pregnancy can cause a birth defect called microcephaly, as well as other severe fetal brain defects.

CDC is investigating the link between Zika virus infection and GBS, an uncommon sickness of the nervous system.

Page last reviewed: May 14, 2019