Zika Virus Basic and Clinical Aspects, Influncing Factors

Zika virus (ZIKV) is an arbovirus previously believed to cause only a mild and self-limiting illness. Recently, it has emerged as a new public health threat that caused a large outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013–2014 and since 2015 an explosive outbreak in Brazil, with an increase in severe congenital malformations (microcephaly) and neurological complications, mainly Guillain Barrue syndrome (GBS). Since then, it has spread through the Americas. On 1 February 2016, the WHO declared the ZIKV epidemic in Brazil a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. We reviewed the epidemiology of ZIKV infection, clinical presentations and diagnosis. We highlighted the clinical features and nonvector borne transmission of the virus. Few studies related to Zika virus (ZIKV) have been published up until 2014. A literature production increase was observed following the French Polynesia outbreak in 2013-2014. But it was only after the explosive ZIKV outbreak in Brazil in 2015 where an increase in reported cases of microcephaly and neurological disorders occurred that several case reports, editorials, letters, research reports, perspectives and reviews were published, impacting the global scientific production in the field. This review describes the current epidemiology of ZIKV infections, clinical presentations and diagnosis

Author(s): Kevin Kevin

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