Zika Virus Biological & Biomedical Sciences Research Paper (Research Paper Sample)

Zika Virus
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Abstract
Zika Virus belongs to family Flaviviridae, which include enveloped, single-stranded, positive stranded RNA viruses. Human diseases such as West Nile disease, Japanese encephalitis, dengue, yellow fever and Zika virus are caused by members of Flavivirus genus within the family Flaviviridae. Zika virus replicates by infecting and reproducing inside the cells of various species including mosquitoes, monkeys and humans. Zika virus is transmitted by a number of mosquito species including Aedes hensilli, Aedes Albopictus, Aedes aegypti and Aedes africanus. Some infected persons experience mild symptoms such as conjunctivitis, joint and muscle pains, rash and fever which begin about 3-4 days after infected mosquito bite and last for about one week while others don’t express any symptoms. There is no vaccine for Zika virus but there are approaches being made for antiviral drug development, this involve targeting specific vulnerable stages in the life cycle of the viral pathogen. The prevalence of Zika virus among 450 pregnant women in United States is 6 %, they have infants with birth defects related to the virus and 47 pregnancy losses. The unexpected increase capacity for pathogenesis of Zika virus could be due to genetic changes. It is predicted that the future changes in phenotype could continue to grow with increase in geographic range. The solution from the arising number of mutation cases is using the novel developments in molecular and immunodiagnostic tests. These tests should be more sensitive and specific due to wide time detection window and high proportion of asymptomatic infections.