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s a way to better predict where Zika virus is likely to spread, researchers tested the ability of Zika-infected mosquitoes to transmit the virus at a range of temperatures. They find that Zika’s spread by mosquitoes is more likely at temperatures five degrees warmer than for dengue virus. The results are published today (August 15) in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
For study author Erin Mordecai, an assistant professor of biology at Stanford University, the results indicate that under future, warming temperatures, there may be an increase in climate suitability for Zika transmission in most regions of the globe except the hottest areas, where temperatures will begin to regularly exceed 29 °C.
“I’m impressed with the work,” Laura Harrington, a professor of entomology at Cornell University in New York who collaborates with the authors of the study but was not involved in this project, writes in an email ...
