A latest study has suggested that scientists could have the first proof that Zika virus can lead to temporary paralysis. The study was conducted on patients who suffered the rare condition in the virus outbreak in Tahiti two years back.

Zika is presently spreading at an alarming speed throughout the Americas. Several weeks back, the World Health Organization announced that the epidemic is a global emergency on the basis of suspicions that it could be the culprit of an increase in disturbing birth defects and in a neurological illness known as Guillain-Barre syndrome that generally lasts a few weeks.

Last year, prior reaching South America, the mosquito-spread Zika had caused outbreaks in the South Pacific on Yap Island in Micronesia and in French Polynesia, which includes its biggest island Tahiti.

The researchers revisited Tahiti, France and others and examined blood samples from 42 adults, who suffered Guillain-Barre syndrome during an outbreak in 2013-14. They found that roughly everyone showed signs of an earlier Zika infection.

The examined adults were compared with patients, who didn’t suffer the condition and didn’t show any Zika symptoms, but their treatment was carried out at the same hospital for other illnesses. Tests demonstrated that just 50% in the group of 98 had clearly been infected with the usually mild virus. The research appeared online in the journal Lancet on Monday.

Peter Barlow, an infectious diseases expert at Edinburgh Napier University, who wasn’t involved in the study said, “The evidence that links Zika virus with Guillain-Barre syndrome is now substantially more compelling”. However, in a statement he noted that more research needs to be done before reaching on the same conclusion regarding the outbreak in the Americas, where local factors could have played a part.