the_other_paul

How do medical/public health authorities plan to determine if microcephaly cases are indeed linked to Zika?

It's highly unlikely that the release of Oxitec's genetically modified mosquitoes has any connection to the Zika/microcephaly--the modifications to the mosquitoes wouldn't make them more likely to cause health problems in humans, and the mosquitoes were released a long distance from the area where Zika first broke out in Brazil. Here's a good article about it.

Apparently the plaque reduction neutralization test is another antibody test that can be used to distinguish Zika from dengue, but the procedure seems like a big hassle compared to ELISA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaque_reduction_neutralization_test

Yeah, case control studies seem like the right strategy. Will they be able to supplement the participants' histories with any kind of specimen-gathering or testing? Would antibody testing (to learn about past Zika infection) be useful for a case-control study?

The two main ways to do this are: Controlling mosquitoes by: cleaning up places where they like to lay eggs, spraying them with pesticides (in a controlled manner), and possibly by releasing mosquitoes that are genetically engineered to die (as Oxitec is doing).

Reducing contact between mosquitoes and humans: window screens, air conditioning, mosquito repellent.