Browsing by Subject "Zika virus"

Zika virus (ZIKV) is an arthropod-borne virus of the genus Flavivirus. It is transmitted by Aedes mosquitos but also sexually, via blood transfusions and perinatally from mother to foetus. Before the outbreaks in Yap Island in Micronesia (2007) and French Polynesia (2013), ZIKV has caused only sporadic human infections in Africa and Asia. The latest and most remarkable epidemic started in Brazil in 2015 and it has later spread to many countries of South and Central America. Zika virus infection is typically asymptomatic or causes a self-limiting febrile illness with rash, headache, arthralgia and conjunctivitis. During the latest epidemic, the increasing numbers of newborns with microcephaly has attained wide concern. Later, the causality between Zika virus infection and microcephaly has been proven. The virus has also been connected with other neurological disorders, such as Guillain Barré syndrome. Causes of the abrupt epidemics and the increasing amount of neurological symptoms associated with ZIKV infections are still unclear. In this study, we compared the infectivity of three Asian and one African ZIKV strain in 10 human and three mosquito cell lines. We noticed that a recent ZIKV isolate from foetal brain infected several cell lines more efficiently than two other Asian strains from symptomatic febrile patients from Martinique and French Polynesia. The three viruses of Asian lineage are closely related, but contain specific mutations in their genome. Further studies are warranted to specifically determine the mutations resulting in the increased infectivity of the foetal brain isolate. (244)