Researchers determined Zika’s effect on the eye by infecting adult mice with the virus. Through observation, they confirmed Zika is able to travel to the eye. This finding raises the question of whether Zika could infect humans through contact with an infected person’s tears.
Zika can cause optic nerve inflammation, retinal damage or blindness after birth in fetuses as well as conjunctivitis in adults.
The current study shows that the mouse eye and tears can host Zika’s RNA, the virus’ genetic material, but not the infectious virus. However, “that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be infectious in humans,” said Jonathan J. Miner, MD, PhD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the study’s lead author in a statement. “There could be a window of time when tears are highly infectious and people are coming in contact with it and able to spread it.”
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