Zika Virus

First discovered in monkeys in Uganda’s Zika forest in 1947, the Zika virus has been reported in human populations in Asia and Africa since the 1950s. It was first found outside its usual geographic region in 2007 in the South Pacific, and recently reached the Americas in 2014. It is spread by mosquitoes. Only one in five who are infected show symptoms, which are mostly mild, including fever, rash, headache, muscle and joint pain and conjunctivitis. Recently, there has been an increase in reported cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome in infected adults and microcephaly in newborns whose mothers were infected with the virus.