Abstract
In the early 2015, several cases of patients presenting symptoms of mild fever, rash, conjunctivitis and arthralgia were reported in the northeastern Brazil. Although all patients lived in a dengue endemic area, molecular and serological diagnosis for dengue resulted negative. Chikungunya virus infection was also discarded. Subsequently, Zika virus (ZIKV) was detected by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction from the sera of eight patients and the result was confirmed by DNA sequencing. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that the ZIKV identified belongs to the Asian clade. This is the first report of ZIKV infection in Brazil.
Highlights
Zika virus (ZIKV) is an emerging arthropod borne virus transmitted by Aedes (Stegomyia) mosquitoes
The virus belongs to the genus Flavivirus, family Flaviviridae, and is closely related to other flaviviruses of public health relevance including dengue (DENV), yellow fever and West Nile viruses (Pierson & Diamond 2013, Faye et al 2014)
The virus was described as causing sporadic human infections in Africa and Asia, until 2007 when a Zika fever epidemics took place in Yap Island, Micronesia (Duffy et al 2009)
Summary
Zika virus (ZIKV) is an emerging arthropod borne virus (arbovirus) transmitted by Aedes (Stegomyia) mosquitoes. A physician specialist in infectious disease evaluated the patients and the clinical signs and symptoms and laboratory findings indicated a non-DENV and non-Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection. After RNA extraction, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was performed as a rapid molecular tool to detect viral infection in acute-phase samples. All samples rendered negative results in RT-PCR assays for CHIKV infection (Lanciotti et al 2007).
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