Though dozens of people in Europe have contracted Zika, usually after traveling in affected countries such as Brazil, this is the first European birth of a baby with the defect by a mother carrying the virus.
 
Regional health authorities of Catalonia have reported that the woman had been diagnosed with the virus in May and had decided to keep the baby. The woman was 20 weeks into her pregnancy when she learnt she was infected with the virus, after a trip to Latin America.
 
Doctors from the Vall d'Hebron hospital in Barcelona said the boy's vital signs were “normal and stable”.
 
“He is being monitored but he doesn't need any respiratory assistance”, said Felix Castillo, head of the hospital's neonatal care unit, told journalists. Mr. Castillo confirmed that the circumference of the child's head was “smaller than normal and that it has microcephaly”.
 
Earlier this year, the World Health Organization declared the Zika virus a global public health emergency because of the risk to newborn children.
 
The mosquito-borne Zika virus has been linked to hundreds of cases of microcephaly. Spain had 190 known cases of Zika infections at the latest count, 189 of which resulted from traveling overseas and one was sexually transmitted.