Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a viral disease of humans and livestock that can cause mild to severe symptoms. The mild symptoms may include: fever, muscle pains, and headaches which often last for up to a week. The severe symptoms may include: loss of sight beginning three weeks after the infection, infections of the brain causing severe headaches and confusion, and bleeding together with liver problems which may occur within the first few days. Those who have bleeding have a chance of death as high as 50%.
West Nile fever is an infection by the West Nile virus, which is typically spread by mosquitoes. In about 80% of infections people have few or no symptoms. About 20% of people develop a fever, headache, vomiting, or a rash. In less than 1% of people, encephalitis or meningitis occurs, with associated neck stiffness, confusion, or seizures. Recovery may take weeks to months. The risk of death among those in whom the nervous system is affected is about 10%.
Arbovirus is an informal name used to refer to any viruses that are transmitted by arthropod vectors. The word arbovirus is an acronym. The word tibovirus is sometimes used to more specifically describe viruses transmitted by ticks, a superorder within the arthropods. Arboviruses can affect both animals and plants. In humans, symptoms of arbovirus infection generally occur 3–15 days after exposure to the virus and last three or four days. The most common clinical features of infection are fever, headache, and malaise, but encephalitis and viral hemorrhagic fever may also occur.
Nipah virus, scientific name Nipah henipavirus, is a bat-borne virus that causes Nipah virus infection in humans and other animals, a disease with a high mortality rate. Numerous disease outbreaks caused by Nipah virus have occurred in South and Southeast Asia. Nipah virus belongs to the genus Henipavirus along with the Hendra virus, which has also caused disease outbreaks.
The o'nyong'nyong virus (ONNV) was first isolated by researchers at the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe, Uganda, during a large outbreak of a disease in 1959 that resembled dengue fever. ONNV is a togavirus, genus Alphavirus, is closely related to the chikungunya and Igbo Ora viruses, and is a member of the Semliki Forest antigenic complex. The name was given to the disease by the Acholi tribe during the 1959 outbreak. The name comes from the Nilotic language of Uganda and Sudan and means “weakening of the joints". The virus can infect humans and may cause disease.
Oropouche fever is a tropical viral infection transmitted by biting midges and mosquitoes from the blood of sloths to humans. This disease is named after the region where it was first discovered and isolated at the Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory in 1955 by the Oropouche River in Trinidad and Tobago. Oropouche fever is caused by a specific arbovirus, the Oropouche virus (OROV), of the Bunyaviridae family.
Viral encephalitis is inflammation of the brain parenchyma, called encephalitis, by a virus. The different forms of viral encephalitis are called viral encephalitides. It is the most common type of encephalitis and often occurs with viral meningitis. Encephalitic viruses first cause infection and replicate outside of the central nervous system (CNS), most reaching the CNS through the circulatory system and a minority from nerve endings toward the CNS. Once in the brain, the virus and the host's inflammatory response disrupt neural function, leading to illness and complications, many of which frequently are neurological in nature, such as impaired motor skills and altered behavior.
Oropouche orthobunyavirus (OROV) is one of the most common orthobunyaviruses. When OROV infects humans, it causes a rapid fever illness called Oropouche fever. OROV was originally reported in Trinidad and Tobago in 1955 from the blood sample of a fever patient and from a pool of Coquillettidia venezuelensis mosquitoes. In 1960, OROV was isolated from a sloth and a pool of Ochlerotatus serratus mosquitoes in Brazil. The virus is considered a public health threat in tropical and subtropical areas of Central and South America, with over half million infected people as of 2005. OROV is considered to be an arbovirus due to the method of transmission by the mosquitoes Aedes serratus and Culex quinquefasciatus among sloths, marsupials, primates, and birds.
An emerging infectious disease (EID) is an infectious disease whose incidence has increased recently, and could increase in the near future. Such diseases do not respect national boundaries. The minority that are capable of developing efficient transmission between humans can become major public and global concerns as potential causes of epidemics or pandemics. Their many impacts can be economic and societal, as well as clinical.
Reverse zoonosis, also known as zooanthroponosis, and sometimes anthroponosis, refers to pathogens reservoired in humans that are capable of being transmitted to non-human animals.
Zika virus (ZIKV) is a member of the virus family Flaviviridae. It is spread by daytime-active Aedes mosquitoes, such as A. aegypti and A. albopictus. Its name comes from the Ziika Forest of Uganda, where the virus was first isolated in 1947. Zika virus shares a genus with the dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, and West Nile viruses. Since the 1950s, it has been known to occur within a narrow equatorial belt from Africa to Asia. From 2007 to 2016, the virus spread eastward, across the Pacific Ocean to the Americas, leading to the 2015–2016 Zika virus epidemic.
Usutu virus (USUV) is a flavivirus belonging to the Japanese encephalitis complex, which is an emerging zoonotic arbovirus of concern because of its pathogenicity to humans and its similarity in ecology with other emerging arboviruses such as West Nile virus. It mainly infects Culex mosquitoes and birds; humans form a dead-end host. First identified in South Africa in 1959, the virus has caused outbreaks in birds across Europe since 1996. Nearly 50 cases in humans have been reported as of 2019, mainly in Europe. These are predominantly asymptomatic, but some people experience neurological symptoms.
Banna virus (BAV) is a virus belonging to Reoviridae, a family of segmented, non-enveloped, double-stranded RNA viruses. It is an arbovirus, being primarily transmitted to humans from the bite of infected mosquitoes of the genus Culex. Pigs and cattle have also been shown to become infected. The most common symptom of infection is fever, but in some cases encephalitis may occur. There is no specific treatment for infection, so treatment is aimed at alleviating the severity of symptoms until the immune system has cleared the infection.
Rousettus bat coronavirus HKU9 (HKU9-1) is an enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA mammalian Group 2 Betacoronavirus discovered in Rousettus bats in China in 2011. This strain of coronavirus is closely related to the EMC/2012 strain found in London which is related to the Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The MERS-CoV species is responsible for the 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy.
The Ziika Forest, better known as the Zika Forest, is a tropical forest near Entebbe in Uganda. Ziika means "overgrown" in the Luganda language. As the property of the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) of Entebbe, it is protected and restricted to scientific research.
Tensaw orthobunyavirus is a virus in the genus Orthobunyavirus of the Bunyamwera arbovirus group, order Bunyavirales. It is named for the river bordering the area in south Alabama where the prototype strain was discovered. It is abbreviated TEN, TENV, and TSV in the scientific literature.
This article primarily covers the chronology of the 2015–16 Zika virus epidemic. Flag icons denote the first announcements of confirmed cases by the respective nation-states, their first deaths, and relevant sessions and announcements of the World Health Organization (WHO), and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), as well as relevant virological, epidemiological, and entomological studies.
West Nile virus (WNV) is a single-stranded RNA virus that causes West Nile fever. It is a member of the family Flaviviridae, specifically from the genus Flavivirus, which also contains the Zika virus, dengue virus, and yellow fever virus. West Nile virus is primarily transmitted by mosquitoes, mostly species of Culex. The primary hosts of WNV are birds, so that the virus remains within a "bird–mosquito–bird" transmission cycle. The virus is genetically related to the Japanese encephalitis family of viruses.
Maguari orthobunyavirus, abbreviated MAGV, is a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA virus in the Bunyavirales order, genus Orthobunyavirus, Bunyamwera serogroup, that has been shown to be capable of causing human disease. MAGV is related to Cache Valley virus and Tensaw virus.
Rio Negro virus is an alphavirus that was first isolated in Argentina in 1980. The virus was first called Ag80-663 but was renamed to Rio Negro virus in 2005. The virus is a member of the Venezuelan equine encephalitis complex (VEEC), which are a group of alphaviruses in the Americas that have the potential to emerge and cause disease. Closely related viruses include Mucambo virus and Everglades virus.
