New Insights on the Zika Virus Arrival in the Americas and Spatiotemporal Reconstruction of the Epidemic Dynamics in Brazil

Costa, Larissa C.; Veiga, Rafael Valente; Oliveira, Juliane F.; Rodrigues, Moreno S.; Andrade, Roberto F. S.; Paixão, Enny S.; Teixeira, Maria da Glória Lima Cruz; Costa, Maria da Conceição Nascimento; Cardim, Luciana Lobato; Carmo, Eduardo Hage; Oliveira, Wanderson Kleber de; Gonçalves, José Irahe Kasprzykowski; Fernandes, Qeren Hapuk Rodrigues Ferreira; Barreto, Maurício L.; Queiroz, Artur T. L.; Gräf, Tiago

doi:10.3390/v13010012

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Municipalities’ geographic region is also important, with Southeastern and Northeastern cities experiencing greater Zika incidence, on average. Similarly, the months of January, February, March, and April have higher incidence than the omitted baseline month of July [ 74 , 75 , 76 , 77 ]. Tables with full geographic and seasonal variables will be posted along with the dataset in the Harvard Dataverse.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratizing Public Health: Participatory Policymaking Institutions, Mosquito Control, and Zika in the Americas

Touchton

Wampler

2023

TropicalMed

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The Zika virus is a mosquito-borne virus spread primarily by Aedes mosquitoes. Zika cases have been detected throughout the mosquito’s range, with an epidemic occurring from 2015 to 2017 in Brazil. Many Zika cases are mild or asymptomatic, but infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly in children, and a small percentage of cases result in Guillan–Barré syndrome. There is currently little systematic information surrounding the municipal spread of the Zika Virus in Brazil. This article uses coarsened exact matching with negative binomial estimation and ordinary least squares estimation to assess the determinants of Zika incidence across the ~280,000 cases confirmed and recorded by Brazil’s Ministry of Health in 2016 and 2017. These data come from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in Brazil and have not been published. We use data on the universe of individual Zika cases in Brazil and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software to examine the virus at the municipal level across 5570 municipalities and construct a unique, unusually rich dataset covering daily Zika transmission. Additionally, our dataset includes corresponding local data on democratic governance, mosquito control efforts, and environmental conditions to estimate their relationship to Zika transmission. The results demonstrate that the presence of subnational democratic, participatory policymaking institutions and high levels of local state capacity are associated with low rates of Zika contraction. These models control for local healthcare spending and economic conditions, among other factors, that also influence Zika contraction rates. In turn, these findings provide a better understanding of what works for local health governance and mosquito control and makes important data public so that scholars and practitioners can perform their own analyses. Stronger models of Zika transmission will then inform mosquito abatement efforts across the Global South, as well as provide a blueprint for combatting Dengue fever, which is also transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratizing Public Health: Participatory Policymaking Institutions, Mosquito Control, and Zika in the Americas

Touchton

Wampler

2023

TropicalMed

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“…ZIKV infection was considered a public health concern in tropical countries, especially in South America due to a rapid growth in the number of microcephaly cases in Brazil caused by the flavivirus in 2015. Although the number of reported cases has waned in the last two years, it could increase anytime with the spread of the mosquito vector during rainy seasons 30 . Considering the potential risks of such infection, it is clear the need of a prophylactic vaccine against it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In silico construction of a multiepitope Zika virus vaccine using immunoinformatics tools

Antonelli

Almeida

Castro

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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Zika virus (ZIKV) is an arbovirus from the Flaviviridae family and Flavivirus genus. Neurological events have been associated with ZIKV-infected individuals, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune acute neuropathy that causes nerve demyelination and can induce paralysis. With the increase of ZIKV infection incidence in 2015, malformation and microcephaly cases in newborns have grown considerably, which suggested congenital transmission. Therefore, the development of an effective vaccine against ZIKV became an urgent need. Live attenuated vaccines present some theoretical risks for administration in pregnant women. Thus, we developed an in silico multiepitope vaccine against ZIKV. All structural and non-structural proteins were investigated using immunoinformatics tools designed for the prediction of CD4 + and CD8 + T cell epitopes. We selected 13 CD8 + and 12 CD4 + T cell epitopes considering parameters such as binding affinity to HLA class I and II molecules, promiscuity based on the number of different HLA alleles that bind to the epitopes, and immunogenicity. ZIKV Envelope protein domain III (EDIII) was added to the vaccine construct, creating a hybrid protein domain-multiepitope vaccine. Three high scoring continuous and two discontinuous B cell epitopes were found in EDIII. Aiming to increase the candidate vaccine antigenicity even further, we tested secondary and tertiary structures and physicochemical parameters of the vaccine conjugated to four different protein adjuvants: flagellin, 50S ribosomal protein L7/L12, heparin-binding hemagglutinin, or RS09 synthetic peptide. The addition of the flagellin adjuvant increased the vaccine's predicted antigenicity. In silico predictions revealed that the protein is a probable antigen, non-allergenic and predicted to be stable. The vaccine’s average population coverage is estimated to be 87.86%, which indicates it can be administered worldwide. Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMC) of individuals with previous ZIKV infection were tested for cytokine production in response to the pool of CD4 and CD8 ZIKV peptide selected. CD4 + and CD8 + T cells showed significant production of IFN-γ upon stimulation and IL-2 production was also detected by CD8 + T cells, which indicated the potential of our peptides to be recognized by specific T cells and induce immune response. In conclusion, we developed an in silico universal vaccine predicted to induce broad and high-coverage cellular and humoral immune responses against ZIKV, which can be a good candidate for posterior in vivo validation.

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“…The first autochthonous case of ZIKV infection in the Americas was reported in northeastern Brazil in May 2015. Subsequently, Zika spread rapidly throughout Brazil, reaching its peak in 2016 with 273,904 reported cases [ 50 – 52 ]. The transmission of ZIKV persists, although the number of cases has decreased since 2018 (19,020 reported cases) [ 51 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of culture-dependent native microbiota in Zika virus infection in Aedes aegypti

et al. 2022

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Background Emerging and re-emerging vector-borne diseases (VBDs) pose a recurring threat to tropical countries, mainly due to the abundance and distribution of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is a vector of the Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever arboviruses. Methods Female 3–5 day-old Ae. aegypti were distributed into two experimental groups: group I—survey of cultivable bacteria; sucrose group: fed only on sucrose, i.e., non-blood-fed (UF); blood-fed group: (i) fed with non-infected blood (BF); (ii) fed with blood infected with the Zika virus (BZIKV); (iii) pretreated with penicillin/streptomycin (pen/strep), and fed with non-infected blood (TBF); (iv) pretreated with pen/strep and fed blood infected with ZIKV, i.e., gravid with developed ovaries, (TGZIKV); group II—experimental co-infections: bacteria genera isolated from the group fed on sucrose, i.e., non-blood-fed (UF). Results Using the cultivable method and the same mosquito colony and ZIKV strain described by in a previous work, our results reveled 11 isolates (Acinetobacter, Aeromonas, Cedecea, Cellulosimicrobium, Elizabethkingia, Enterobacter, Lysinibacillus, Pantoea, Pseudomonas, Serratia, and Staphylococcus). Enterobacter was present in all evaluated groups (i.e., UF, BF, BZIKV, TBF, and TGZIKV), whereas Elizabethkingia was present in the UF, BZIKV, and TBF groups. Pseudomonas was present in the BZIKV and TBF groups, whereas Staphylococcus was present in the TBF and TGZIKV groups. The only genera of bacteria that were found to be present in only one group were Aeromonas, Lysinibacillus, and Serratia (UF); Cedacea, Pantoea and Acinetobacter (BF); and Cellulosimicrobium (BZIKV). The mosquitoes co-infected with ZIKV plus the isolates group fed on sucrose (UF) showed interference in the outcome of infection. Conclusions We demonstrate that the distinct feeding aspects assessed herein influence the composition of bacterial diversity. In the co-infection, among ZIKV, Ae. aegypti and the bacterial isolates, the ZIKV/Lysinibacillus–Ae. aegypti had the lowest number of viral copies in the head-SG, which means that it negatively affects vector competence. However, when the saliva was analyzed after forced feeding, no virus was detected in the mosquito groups ZIKV/Lysinibacillus–Lu. longipalpis and Ae. aegypti; the combination of ZIKV/Serratia may interfere in salivation. This indicates that the combinations do not produce viable viruses and may have great potential as a method of biological control. Graphical Abstract

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New Insights on the Zika Virus Arrival in the Americas and Spatiotemporal Reconstruction of the Epidemic Dynamics in Brazil

Cited by 10 publications

References 39 publications

Democratizing Public Health: Participatory Policymaking Institutions, Mosquito Control, and Zika in the Americas

Democratizing Public Health: Participatory Policymaking Institutions, Mosquito Control, and Zika in the Americas

In silico construction of a multiepitope Zika virus vaccine using immunoinformatics tools

The influence of culture-dependent native microbiota in Zika virus infection in Aedes aegypti

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