Graphics illustrate the predicted distribution of the Zika mosquito across the globe; second graphic details serious conditions linked to Zika.
The Zika virus could have entered Brazil in 2013, two years before it was confirmed here and a year before previously believed, a new study claims. The study examined genetic profiles of seven Brazilian Zika cases.
Scientists said the study presents valuable findings as Brazil’s overstretched health service grapples with twin outbreaks of Zika and the birth defect microcephaly. The government has confirmed a link between the two.
“It’s very early and limited but valuable information,” said Daniel Lucy, an infectious-disease specialist at Georgetown University.
Zika could even have been introduced to Brazil during the 2013 Confederations Cup, a soccer tournament that featured a team from Tahiti – which suffered a Zika epidemic that year.
“We managed to trace the date of introduction between May and September 2013,” said Nuno Faria, a researcher at Oxford University and one of the authors of the paper, published Thursday in the journal Science.
The research by scientists from Britain’s Oxford University and Brazil’s Evandro Chagas Institute is the first to have analyzed the Zika genome found in Brazil. Since reaching here, it has spread to another 33 countries across the Americas.
“This is the first study combing genetic and epidemiological data on the Zika virus in Brazil, so it is a good baseline for future research,” Faria said.
Researchers found that Brazil’s Zika virus is closely related to the Asian strain of Zika that was behind an outbreak in French Polynesia in 2013. The strain also circulates across Southeast Asia. Zika was first found in Uguanda in 1947, and there is also an African strain.
