16 Facts About Zika virus

Zika virus is a member of the virus family Flaviviridae.

Zika virus belongs to the family Flaviviridae and the genus Flavivirus, thus is related to the dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, and West Nile viruses.

Vertebrate hosts of the Zika virus were primarily monkeys in a so-called enzootic mosquito-monkey-mosquito cycle, with only occasional transmission to humans.

At that time, the Pan American Health Organization published a list of countries and territories that experienced "local Zika virus transmission" comprising Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin, Suriname, and Venezuela.

Zika virus is primarily spread by the female Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is active mostly in the daytime.

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The virus has been isolated from a number of arboreal mosquito species in the genus Aedes, such as A africanus, A apicoargenteus, A furcifer, A hensilli, A luteocephalus, and A vittatus, with an extrinsic incubation period in mosquitoes around 10 days.

Zika virus has been detected in many more species of Aedes, along with Anopheles coustani, Mansonia uniformis, and Culex perfuscus, although this alone does not incriminate them as vectors.

Potential societal risk of Zika virus can be delimited by the distribution of the mosquito species that transmit it.

Zika virus appears to be contagious via mosquitoes for around a week after infection.

The Zika virus is thought to be infectious for a longer period of time after infection when transmitted via semen.

Zika virus can spread by vertical transmission, during pregnancy or at delivery.

The pathogenesis of the Zika virus is hypothesized to continue with a spread to lymph nodes and the bloodstream.

Zika virus was first known to infect humans from the results of a serological survey in Uganda, published in 1952.

Subsequent serological studies in several African and Asian countries indicated the Zika virus had been widespread within human populations in these regions.

Oceania countries experiencing Zika virus today are New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, American Samoa, Samoa, and Tonga.

In November 2016, the World Health Organization declared that Zika virus was no longer a global emergency while noting that the virus still represents "a highly significant and a long-term problem".