ABOVE: Females of the globally invasive (right) and African (left) subspecies of the mosquito Aedes aegypti
GREG MURRAY, LOUIS LAMBRECHTS
According to the World Health Organization, Zika virus was first isolated from an infected monkey in Uganda in 1947, but there have only been sporadic cases across the African continent since. In contrast, thousands of people in the Americas and Asia were infected in multiple outbreaks since 2007. During the worst, in 2016, the virus spread to more than 60 countries and was implicated in some 5,000 cases of microcephaly—a severe birth defect in which a baby’s head is much smaller than expected.
The authors of a study published today (November 19) in Science offer a possible explanation for the devastation Zika has caused outside of African countries. They show that the subspecies of the mosquito vector, Aedes aegypti, that lives in close proximity with people in the tropical urban areas ...
