Zika Virus

Zika virus is rapidly spreading throughout the Americas and the Caribbean. The association with microcephaly has led the WHO to declare a public health emergency. This review describes our current understanding of the characteristics of Zika virus infection. In 1947, a study of yellow fever yielded the first isolation of a new virus, from the blood of a sentinel rhesus macaque that had been placed in the Zika Forest of Uganda. 1 Zika virus remained in relative obscurity for nearly 70 years; then, within the span of just 1 year, Zika virus was introduced into Brazil from the Pacific Islands and spread rapidly throughout the Americas. 2 It became the first major infectious disease linked to human birth defects to be discovered in more than half a century and created such global alarm that the World Health Organization (WHO) would . . .