[Reporting of birth defects from the Zika outbreak in Colombia, 2015-2017Notificação de defeitos congênitos associados ao surto de vírus zika na Colômbia, 2015-2017].

Objetivo: O surto de virus zika afetou varios paises tropicais de 2015 a 2016. Fez-se necessario elaborar estrategias de vigilância intensificada da microcefalia e outras sindromes neurologicas. O presente estudo avaliou o impacto do surto de virus zika na notificacao de defeitos congenitos no sistema nacional de vigilância da Colombia. Metodos: A notificacao nacional de recem-nascidos com defeitos congenitos foi analisada e a variacao na notificacao atribuida a epidemia de zika foi determinada com o uso de um modelo semiparametrico de diferenca em diferencas (DD). Results: During the period of study, 18,234 cases of birth defects were reported in Colombia. The majority were congenital malformations (91.9%), and 82.3% was confirmed by clinical diagnosis or epidemiological link. In the case of microcephaly, eight new cases per epidemiological week were reported (coefficient of case reporting [D] = 8.8; P = 0.000) and 32 cases from other congenital anatomical malformations (D = 32.0; P = 0.000). The absolute value of the difference in differences estimator attributed to the Zika outbreak increased weekly case reporting of microcephaly (DID = |-5.0|; P = 0.008) and congenital malformations (DID = |-12.0|; P = 0.111). Conclusions: The Zika outbreak increased reporting of newborns with microcephaly, but caused no significant variation in reporting of other malformations and functional birth defects of sensory or metabolic origin in the surveillance system.