Zika virus: A potential menace

• Author Details:   
• Shilpa Rudra
• Subham Das ^*

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Zika virus is gradually emerging and leading to an alarming concern all over the world in recent times. Zika virus is considered as positive strand single stranded RNA virus belonging to the genus Flavivirus in the Flaviviridae family. The non-segmented virus possesses an icosahedral shape with a virion of size ranging from 40-60nm in diameter where the genome size is of 11kb approximately. This arbovirus is a mosquito-borne virus which was first isolated from rhesus monkey in the ZIKA forest, Uganda in the year of 1947. In India the first reported case of ZIKA was noted in Bapunagar area, Ahmedabad District, Gujarat in 2017 and the biggest outbreak in India happened in 2018 which strikes two states that is Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh. The infection gets transmitted to humans through several ways such as bites of infected mosquito vectors in the genus of Aedes, vertical transmission, from mother to infant while breastfeeding and transmission through interpersonal sexual contact and blood transfusion.

This study aims to comprehensively document the history of Zika virus outbreaks by assembling information from diverse sources including reputable websites and literature along with the transmission dynamics. This article involves a systematic search and collection of data on Zika outbreaks from World Health Organization, Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme, and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and several literatures from 2015 to till date. The article was reviewed to gather comprehensive data on the timeline, geographical spread, transmission dynamics, and symptoms associated with Zika virus outbreaks globally.

Keywords: Zika virus, Arbovirus, Flaviviridae, Zika epidemiology and outbreak, Congenital zika syndrome, Diagnosis and prevention of zika, Flavivirus.