Support for women and girls of childbearing age is at the centre of a new revised plan that the World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners have issued to guide countries in their response to the Zika crisis. According to the revised plan, a key strategy for preventing the spread of the virus is ensuring that pregnant women, their partners and communities have the information they need to ...

We report three unrelated cases of Zika virus infection in patients returning from Martinique, Brazil and Colombia respectively, to Montpellier, France. They developed symptoms compatible with a mosquito-borne disease, and serological and molecular investigations indicated a recent Zika virus infection. Considering the recent warning for the likely teratogenicity of Zika virus and the presence ...

In May, 2015, locally acquired cases of Zika virus—an arbovirus found in Africa and Asia-Pacifi c and transmitted via Aedes mosquitoes—were confi rmed in Brazil. The presence of Aedes mosquitoes across Latin America, coupled with suitable climatic conditions, have triggered a Zika virus epidemic in Brazil, currently estimated at 440 000–1 300 000 cases. Viraemic travellers have now introduced Z...

In early 2015, an outbreak of Zika virus, a flavivirus transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, was identified in northeast Brazil, an area where dengue virus was also circulating. By September, reports of an increase in the number of infants born with microcephaly in Zika virus-affected areas began to emerge, and Zika virus RNA was identified in the amniotic fluid of two women whose fetuses had been f...

Zika virus is an emerging arbovirus of humans in the western hemisphere. With its potential spread into new geographical areas, it is important to define the vector competence of native mosquito species. We tested the vector competency of Aedes vexans (Meigen) from the Lake Agassiz Plain of northwestern Minnesota and northeastern North Dakota. Aedes aegypti (L.) was used as a positive control f...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the timing of key events in the natural history of Zika virus infection. METHODS In February 2016, we searched PubMed, Scopus and the Web of Science for publications containing the term Zika. By pooling data, we estimated the incubation period, the time to seroconversion and the duration of viral shedding. We estimated the risk of Zika virus contaminated blood donations....

Since early reports of the recent Zika virus outbreak in May 2015, much has been learned and discussed regarding Zika virus infection and transmission. However, many opportunities still remain for translating these findings into field-ready sensors and diagnostics. In this brief review, we discuss current diagnostic methods, consider the prospects of translating other flavivirus biosensors dire...

A recent outbreak of Zika virus has been linked to fetal abnormalities in pregnant women who have been infected. The scientific community is working toward understanding Zika virus pathogenesis to better manage affected women and children. In an interview with Dr. Catherine Spong, we discuss the aims and challenges of a forthcoming longitudinal study of a cohort of pregnant women in areas of cu...

Zika virus RNA presence in serum, whole-blood and urine samples from six Israeli travellers symptomatic for Zika virus disease was examined. Whole-blood samples were positive for as late as 2 months (58 days) post-symptom onset, longer than for urine (26 days) and serum (3 days). These findings suggest the utility of whole blood in Zika infection diagnosis.

regions that are ill-equipped to manage imported cu-taneous leishmaniasis has resulted in outbreaks in Turkey and Lebanon (5,6). Our findings emphasize the importance of contempo-raneous disease tracking to identify human populations at highest disease risk. To ameliorate the current cutaneous leishmaniasis crisis, particularly during the winter when cases start to appear, accurate disease moni...