Birth defects jump twentyfold in Zika-hit mothers: study

Pregnant women infected with the Zika virus last year were 20 times more likely to bear children with birth defects than those who gave birth prior to the epidemic, US health officials said Thursday.Researchers for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention compared birth outcomes prior to the Zika epidemic's outbreak in 2015 -- using data from three US state registries -- to those of mothers infected by the virus in 2016.The defects included microcephaly -- a crippling deformation that l