November 16, 2018
Bulletin interne de l'Institut Pasteur
Zika virus in the Pacific : the influence of the geographical context on an outbreak’s emergence
In 2013, the Zika virus (ZIKV) emerged in French Polynesia and more than 1,500 cases were identified the following year in New Caledonia. Owing to the emergence of this outbreak, researchers from the Institut Pasteur de Nouvelle-Calédonie have tried to understand why the Zika virus caused epidemics in the Pacific while it circulated on a low level in Africa and in Asia. The team led by Dr. Myrielle Dupont-Rouzeyrol’s started to focus on the molecular evolution of ZIKV’s strains in the Pacific (Dupont-Rouzeyrol and al, 2017, EMI) and, in relation with this genetic evolution, on the vector competence (vector capacity to multiply and transmit the virus to an host) of the local Caledonian vector : Aedes aegypti.