Given the number of headlines generated in recent months by the Zika virus, one might be forgiven for thinking it’s something new. In fact, it was first isolated in 1947 during research on yellow fever in Uganda’s Zika Forest.
The first documented human case outside the occasional outbreak of mild disease in Africa was in the Federated States of Micronesia in 2007. The mosquito-borne virus spread east across the Pacific and is now pandemic in some parts of Latin America, with the Pan American Health Organization reporting the first confirmed Zika infection in Brazil in May 2015. Since then, it has spread across the continent and confirmed cases have been reported in returning travellers in North America. The World Health Organization (WHO) expects it may spread to all countries in the Americas with the exception of Canada and Chile, thanks to the endemic nature of Aedes mosquitoes that spread it.
The WHO is, rightly, concerned about the virus’s potential impact. At a briefing session at the WHO’s executive board meeting in January, Director General Margaret Chan cited the reasons for concern as the possible association of infection with birth malformations and neurological syndromes; the potential for further international spread, given the wide geographical distribution of the mosquito vector; the lack of population immunity in newly affected areas; and the absence of any vaccines, specific treatments or rapid diagnostic tests.
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