Zika virus disease: from the mildness to the international public health emergency

Abstract

n 1947 Zika virus was originally identified in the Zika Forest of Uganda. This virus caused sporadic cases until 2007, in this year the first outbreak was detected in the Yap Island. The virus is a member of the family Flaviviridae, genus Flavivirus, and is transmitted to humans by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus and others mosquitos. In 2015 the virus was detected in South America, in the northeast of Brazil and 1,500,000 cases were estimated occurred during the 2015 year. Zika fever is a benign disease and the majority of patients developed a low grade fever, rash, malaise, arthralgia and retro auricular adenomegaly, conjunctivitis is a common signal. During the zika outbreak the numbers of Guillain-Barré syndrome increased and there were some encephalitis and myelitis cases. The congenital Zika syndrome was detected in October 2015 and Brazil registered about 1,600 confirmed cases. The diagnosis of Zika infection is based in clinical signals and symptoms, but laboratory test is advised for pregnant woman, newborns with neurological manifestations and patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome(GBS). The RT-PCR is the most useful technique for the diagnosis confirmation, but in some special cases serology tests may be used like in GBS. The Zika infection treatment is only symptomatic, but in the SGB plasmaferese or immunoglobulin may be used for severe cases. The majority congenital infections need to be submitted to an images exams and the treatment of these patients may expensive for the health system. It is important that the clinicians, pediatricians and obstetricians be aware for the suspect’s cases. In this article, we summarized the principal clinical aspects of the Zika infection.