Aedes mosquitoes acquire and transmit Zika virus by breeding in contaminated aquatic environments.

Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that predominantly circulates between humans and Aedes mosquitoes. Clinical studies have shown that Zika viruria in patients persists for an extended period, and results in infectious virions being excreted. Here, we demonstrate that Aedes mosquitoes are permissive to ZIKV infection when breeding in urine or sewage containing low concentrations of ZIKV. Mosquito larvae and pupae, including from field Aedes aegypti can acquire ZIKV from contaminated aquatic systems, resulting in ZIKV infection of adult females. Adult mosquitoes can transmit infectious virions to susceptible type I/II interferon receptor-deficient (ifnagr-/-) C57BL/6 (AG6) mice. Furthermore, ZIKV viruria from infected AG6 mice can causes mosquito infection during the aquatic life stages. Our studies suggest that infectious urine could be a natural ZIKV source, which is potentially transmissible to mosquitoes when breeding in an aquatic environment.

Chagas Disease in Southern Coastal Ecuador: Coinfections with Arboviruses and a Comparison of Serological Assays for Chagas Disease Diagnosis.

Occurrence of Chagas disease and arbovirus coinfections is unknown, despite the vast co-endemic areas throughout the Americas. This study examined the proportion of individuals positive for Trypanosoma cruzi and coinfections with dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses in Machala, Ecuador (January 2014-December 2015). Chagas seropositivity was evaluated with five commercially available assays. Dengue infections were identified by nonstructural protein 1 rapid test and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), immunoglobulin M ELISA, and reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR); chikungunya and Zika infections were identified by RT-PCR. Of 658 individuals, six were positive for T. cruzi (0.91%), including one T. cruzi/dengue coinfection and one T. cruzi/chikungunya/dengue coinfection. The clinical manifestations of coinfected individuals corresponded to severe dengue and dengue with warning signs, respectively. We observed discrepant results by using the Hemagen Chagas kit and the rapid test Chagas Detect Plus (false positives: 3.9% and 15.4%), highlighting the need to assess diagnostic assays in geographic regions with distinct taxonomic units of T. cruzi.

Virus Zika: epidemiología, manifestaciones clínicas y prevención / Zika virus: epidemiology, clinical manifestations and prevention

Zika virus is an arbovirus that was first discovered in Africa in 1947. Until some time ago, it was an unnoticed emergent virus, due to its low epidemiological impact and its mild flu-like symptoms. However, from 2007 on, Zika virus started to propagate throughout the world and was first locally transmitted in America in 2015. Since then, autochthonous cases of Zika infection have been reported on 33 countries of the Americas. The most relevant impact of the Zika virus outspread is its supposed link to the increase in birth defects and microcephaly in newborns in regions with high Zika virus infection incidence during the past two years. Therefore, the World Health Organization declared Zika virus a public health emergency of international concern. This review describes Zika virus epidemiology, transmission mechanisms and pathogeny, such as its clinical presentation, adverse fetal outcomes, diagnosis, treatment and current recommendations for transmission prevention.