Zika virus (
ZIKV) is an
arbovirus of the genus
Flavivirus (
family Flaviviridae), phylogenetically very close to other
viruses, such as the
dengue,
yellow fever,
Japanese encephalitis, and West Nile
viruses. It is a
mosquito-borne
RNA virus, transmitted mainly by the genus
Aedes, and was first isolated in 1947, from a
Rhesus macaque, during a study on the
transmission of jungle
yellow fever in the Zika
Forest of
Uganda. In 1968, it was first isolated in
humans in
Uganda and in the
United Republic of Tanzania. Subsequently,
outbreaks have been recorded in
Africa,
Asia, the Western Pacific region and, more recently, in the
Americas. Sexual and vertical (
mother-to-
child)
transmission of
ZIKV have been documented in a limited number of cases, as has
transmission through
blood transfusion.
Transmission through
breast milk has not been documented, however it may be possible as
viral RNA has been found in the
breast milk of
women who were infected during the
peripartum period; more recently, a
report of infective
ZIKV particles in
breast milk has been published. The symptoms of the
disease usually appear after an incubation period of 3 to 12 days, and are
similar to those of other arboviral
infections; they include
rash,
fever,
conjunctivitis,
myalgia,
arthralgia, malaise, and
headache, and tend to last 4 to 7 days. During an outbreak that occurred in
French Polynesia in 2013 and 2014, an increase in cases of
Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) and other
neurological manifestations was observed in
association with
ZIKV infection and recently, in the
Americas, it has also been associated with other
neurological manifestations...