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(JENNIFER KAY and KELLI KENNEDY, AP). MIAMI (AP) ..... (Melissa Locker, Elle) With a vaccine years away, could ..... 05-12-2016 Senate deal reached on reduced Zika funding measure. ...... [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 27339099.
Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 John W. Cross, Ph.D.a 30. Jul. 2016

Table of Contents News and Feature Articles...........................................................................................................................1 Pathology and Animal Models...................................................................................................................24 Vaccine R&D..............................................................................................................................................29 Companies Developing Vaccines............................................................................................................37 Antiviral Drugs...........................................................................................................................................40 Blood Products..........................................................................................................................................41 Diagnostics.................................................................................................................................................42 FDA Emergency Use Authorizations for Zika..........................................................................................43 Antibody Reagents.................................................................................................................................44 Clinical Research........................................................................................................................................44 Mosquito Vectors.......................................................................................................................................45 Timeline of Zika's Origin and Global Spread...............................................................................................49 Historical Information................................................................................................................................53 References.................................................................................................................................................53 News and Feature Articles

• 07-29-2016 'Zika is now here': Mosquitoes now spreading virus in US. (JENNIFER KAY and KELLI KENNEDY, AP) MIAMI (AP) — Mosquitoes have apparently begun spreading the Zika virus on the U.S. mainland for the first time, health officials said Friday, a long-feared turn in the epidemic that is sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean. Four recently infected people in the Miami area — one woman and three men — are believed to have contracted the virus locally through mosquito bites, Gov. Rick Scott said. No mosquitoes in Florida have actually been found to be carrying Zika, despite the testing of 19,000 by the state lab. But other methods of Zika transmission, such as travel to a stricken country or sex with an infected person, have been ruled out. "Zika is now here," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC…

• 07-29-2016 How foreclosed homes and used tires can threaten public health in the age of Zika. Microbes and mosquitoes aren't the only things that can cause the spread of disease. So can human economic activity. (Sonia Shah, Washington Post) With the Zika virus looming just a couple of years after Ebola spread across West Africa, what’s long been obvious to experts should now be clear to the rest of us: We live in an era of emerging pathogens. Between 1940 and 2004, more than 300 infectious diseases either emerged or spread into new places and populations. On Friday, Florida Gov. Rick Scott called a news conference to alert the public to four

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Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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cases of Zika in South Florida transmitted locally by mosquitoes. Though we imagine infectious microbes propagating according to their own logic, many are resurging thanks to the unintended consequences of human activity that would seem to have little to do with the biology of microbes, from economics and housing policy to architecture.

• 07-28-2016 FDA: No Miami-area blood donations during Zika investigation. (JENNIFER KAY, AP) MIAMI (AP) — Federal authorities have told blood centers in two Florida counties to suspend collections amid investigations into four mysterious cases of Zika infection that may be the first spread by mosquitoes on the U.S. mainland. Blood centers in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas were asked to immediately stop collecting blood until they can screen each unit of blood for the Zika virus with authorized tests, according to a statement on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website….

• 07-27-2016 Twitter vs. Zika: IBM teams with Brazilian organization to battle virus using social media. (Clare McGrane, GeekWire) IBM announced today that they will supply technology and pro-bono work to the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), a Brazilian science and technology organization, to help track the spread of Zika. Fiocruz will use IBM technology to comb public, Portuguese-speaking Twitter accounts for incidents of Zika, its close cousin dengue fever—which Zika is often misdiagnosed as—and the presence of the mosquito breed that commonly spreads the disease. Fiocruz will also use IBM’s STEM program to model the spread of the disease based on factors like weather, human travel, and geography, and analysis of Twitter chatter to research how Zika spreads, and how it might be contained.

• 07-27-2016 Mosquitoes suspected in 2 new mysterious Florida Zika cases. (Mike Stobbe, AP) NEW YORK — Florida health officials are investigating two more mysterious cases of Zika infection that do not appear to be related to travel, bringing the total to four. The cases have raised the possibility that mosquitoes in the U.S. have begun to spread the virus. Florida officials say they are still looking into the cases and have not come to a conclusion. The four cases are in neighboring Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

• 07-27-2016 Hawaii’s blood supply is about to undergo additional testing for safety. (KHON2) The Blood Bank of Hawaii says it is participating in a new screening procedure for donations to ensure that all blood is free of the Zika virus. ...“Should Hawaii become a Zika risk area, (without the additional testing) it’s possible that we might have to completely shut down all blood collection, and then Hawaii would be 100-percent dependent on imported blood from the mainland,” explained Dr. Randal Covin, medical director…. The additional screening is expected to begin on all BBH donations on Sept. 6.

• 07-25-2026 Zika Funding: What If Political Gridlock Isn’t Why Congress Hasn’t Acted? (Ron Klain, Wall Street Journal) How did something that should have been uncontroversial–relatively modest funding to fight a new infectious disease in the U.S.–become so hard that Congress left Washington for the summer (mosquito season) without passing legislation to combat the Zika virus? The obvious answer–that our gridlocked political system cannot complete even the simplest task–does not fully explain things. ...The largest factor appears to be lawmakers’ failure to appreciate the risk Zika poses. Some seem to believe that the threat is overblown, potentially affecting only a few people in a few places. Even if this were true, it would not be an excuse for inaction. But this view understates the nature and extent of the Zika threat….

• 07-25-2016 Colombia declares end to Zika epidemic inside country. But uptick in microcephaly cases is expected later this year. (Thomson Reuters) The epidemic of the Zika virus has officially ended in Colombia, the country's vice health minister said on Monday, 10 months after the mosquito-borne illness arrived in the Andean nation. The disease...has infected nearly 100,000 Colombians and caused 21 cases of microcephaly. ...Vice Health Minister Fernando Ruiz told journalists that the number of infections has been falling by 600 cases a week, though the declaration does not mean an end to infections. There will be an uptick of cases of microcephaly, a birth defect marked by small head size that can lead to severe developmental problems in babies, in September and October, Ruiz said, when pregnant women infected during the peak of the epidemic will give birth….

• 07-25-2016 1.6 million childbearing women could be at risk of Zika virus infection, study suggests. Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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(Science News) Research by scientists in the US and UK has estimated that up to 1.65 million childbearing women in Central and South America could become infected by the Zika virus by the end of the first wave of the epidemic. Researchers from the WorldPop Project and Flowminder Foundation at the University of Southampton and colleagues from the University of Notre Dame and University of Oxford have also found that across Latin America and the Caribbean over 90 million infections could result from the initial stages of the spread of Zika. The team's projections, detailed in the paper Model-based projections of Zika virus infections in childbearing women in the Americas and published in Nature Microbiology, also show that Brazil is expected to have the largest total number of infections (by more than three-fold), due to its size and suitability for transmission. ….an estimated 80 per cent of Zika infections don't show symptoms and of those which do, some may be due to other viruses. Coupled with inconsistent case reporting and variable access to healthcare for different populations, these factors make case based data unreliable…. [See Perkins et al. 2016]

• 07-26-2016 Texas Children's Pavilion for Women announces first-in-Texas Zika clinic. HOUSTON, July 25, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Texas Children's Pavilion for Women, one of the nation's premier facilities for women's, fetal and newborn health, is excited to announce a first-in-Texas Zika clinic to ensure that as the virus continues to be a global concern, pregnant women at risk of contracting it have access to a team of experts who can provide the latest testing and monitor their pregnancies.

• 07-26-2016 El Salvador's battle with Zika the focus of Newsy Original Series, "Zika'sUntold War" CINCINNATI, July 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Uncovering the role church and government play in combating the spread of Zika virus in Central America, the Newsy Original Series, "Zika's Untold War," offers an in-depth and localized glimpse at the cultural effects of this still-mysterious disease. "Zika's Untold War" is a three-part digital video series that presents an on-the-ground look at the virus' effect on El Salvador, a country that's seen thousands of suspected Zika cases among its population of just 6 million people.

• 07-24-2016 Lifelong care, heartaches ahead for babies born with Zika in the U.S. (Lena Sun, Washington Post) At least 12 babies in the United States have already been born with the heartbreaking brain damage caused by the Zika virus. And with that number expected to multiply, public health and pediatric specialists are scrambling as they have rarely done to prepare for the lifelong implications of each case. Many of Zika’s littlest victims, diagnosed with microcephaly and other serious birth defects that might not immediately be apparent, could require care estimated at more than $10 million through adulthood. Officials who have been concentrating on measures to control and prevent transmission of the virus are now confronting a new challenge, seeking to provide guidance for doctors and others who work with young children with developmental problems. The White House and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are holding regular talks with experts and nonprofits about the array of services the infants and their families will need well into the future. Advocacy groups are seeking to raise awareness among parents and day-care providers, and some high-risk states are streamlining existing programs so that they can rapidly connect Zika babies with physical, occupational and other therapies. On Thursday and Friday, CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics convened a special meeting in Atlanta to establish guidelines on how to evaluate and care for infants whose mothers were infected with the virus during pregnancy. They heard ophthalmologist Camila Ventura of Brazil, the epicenter of Zika in the Americas, describe how extremely irritable, even inconsolable, the newborns with microcephaly are. “The babies cannot stop crying,” she said..Just as daunting is the question of how to best monitor those exposed in utero but without obvious abnormalities at birth. Vision and hearing problems can surface, as can seizure disorders….

• 07-23-2016 How a Caribbean island became prime source of U.S. Zika cases. (PHIL GALEWITZ, KAISER HEALTH NEWS) More than 1,400 Americans contracted Zika while traveling outside the U.S. this year and a Caribbeanisland nation is one of the top destinations where they caught the virus. Visitors to the Dominican Republic account for more than a fifth of the confirmed Zika cases in the U.S. through mid-July, according to data from state health departments…. The CDC does not break out the cases it tracks by country of origin — only by the infected person’s state of residency. ...More people who visited the Dominican Republic in 2016 returned with Zika than did U.S. residents who traveled to Puerto Rico, Colombia, Jamaica, El Salvador, Haiti, Guyana and Venezuela combined.... What’s the explanation? In part, it reflects travel patterns between people living in the Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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U.S. with family members in the Caribbean nation, public health officials say. “It’s not really tourists going back and forth,” said Chris Barker, a researcher...at the University of California, Davis. Dominican Republic immigrants are the fifth-largest Hispanic group in the United States, numbering 960,000 in 2012, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Their highest population concentrations are in New York, New Jersey and Florida. Dominicans comprise New York City’s largest Hispanic group and “have a significant travel exchange with the Dominican Republic,” according to the city’s health department....

• 07-14-2016 Peru declares Zika emergency across half of country. (RTE News) Peruvian officials have declared a Zika health emergency across the northern half of their country after confirming that 102 people have been infected with the virus…. The cases detected so far include 34 pregnant women.

• 07-13-2016 Brazilian Moms of So-Called 'ZIKA Babies' Bond, Say They're Shunned. (ABC News) Some new moms in Brazil are being hit especially hard by the Zika virus. Not only are they worrying about their babies' health, now some say they feel abandoned, and shunned by society.

• 07-13-2016 Colombia offers the possibility that the Zika epidemic may not be as bad as feared. (Nick Miroff, Washington Post) CALI, Colombia — In the nine months since the Zika virus appeared in Colombia, the government has reported nearly 100,000 cases, including more than 17,000 among pregnant women. But the epidemic has not produced the dreaded wave of fetal deformities witnessed in Brazil. Brazilian health officials blame the virus for at least 1,600 cases of the birth defect microcephaly, and they are investigating another 3,000 for a link to Zika. In Colombia, the country that has logged the second-highest number of infections, authorities have linked Zika to 18 cases of microcephaly, with 112 under investigation. The fact that Colombia has seen a relatively modest — not massive — increase in birth defects raises hopes that the threat of microcephaly from Zika is not as high as was feared when the images first surfaced of so many newborns in Brazil with small, misshapen heads….Few other nations are tracking Zika with the same rigor as Colombia. While Brazil was essentially caught off guard by the outbreak, Colombia had a comprehensive monitoring effort in place by the time the first infections were confirmed last October.. Figure 1: Countries with Zika-related microcephaly cases.

• 07-13-2016 The big news right now. (Hyacinth Empinado, STAT) ...“Time has run out” begins a letter sent by over 50 organizations, including March of Dimes and American Academy of Pediatrics, to congressional leaders, imploring them to pass a Zika bill this week….. (See also: Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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Zika Virus Funding Battle in Congress 'Simply Inexcusable' (Maggie Fox, NBC News) Marco Rubio holds hearing on Zika virus, gets stung by rivals. (John Kennedy, Palm Beach Post) and Mosquito Mascot Trolls Senate Republicans At Zika Hearing (Huffington Post) - A man in a mosquito costume handed out bug spray outside the Senate hearing on the Zika virus.

• 07-12-2016 NIH’s Fauci On Combating Zika: ‘You Have To Have The Resources To Act Quickly’ (Carmen Heredia Rodriguez, Kaisser Health News) [Interview with Toni Fauci] “...In the early stages, we just diverted people, money, resources, activity away from the standard things that we were doing to start working on a Zika vaccine. ...let’s get started on a full-blown, multi-component vaccine program. I mean not just one vaccine, but a series of four or five vaccines that are in various stages of development. And we did that. Then it became very clear...we would need additional resources. That was when President Barack Obama asked us, together with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Agency for International Development, to put together what we would need. The president added it all up and it came to the $1.9 billion that he asked [Congress] for… Then, when it became clear that we were not going to get that money expeditiously... I started taking funds from [other programs]. ...The money that we were spending in February, March, April and May [on Zika] was money that we would be spending in July and August [on the other research]. We were borrowing money. We were mortgaging our resources.”

• 07-12-2016 Kmart Donates $250,000 to March of Dimes for Zika Prevention. (PRNewswire) WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Top corporate contributor, Kmart, has donated $250,000 to boost March of Dimes' Zika advocacy and education campaign called #ZAPzika.

• 07-08-2016 1st death related to Zika virus seen in continental U.S. (Lindsay Whitehurst, AP) A person infected with Zika has died in Utah, and while the exact cause is unclear, authorities said Friday it marks the first death related to the virus in the continental U.S. The unidentified Salt Lake County resident contracted the virus while traveling abroad to an area with a Zika outbreak, health officials said. The patient who died in late June was elderly and also suffered from another health condition, according to the Salt Lake County Health Department. The person had Zika symptoms — including rash, fever and conjunctivitis — but it's unclear if or how the virus contributed to the death, said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Benjamin Haynes. ...But a 70-year-old man from the San Juan metro area in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico died in late February. Officials said he recovered from initial Zika symptoms, but then developed a condition in which antibodies that formed in reaction to the Zika infection started attacking blood platelet cells. He died after suffering internal bleeding.

• 07-02-2016 Sex May Spread Zika Virus More Often Than Researchers Suspected. (Donald G. Mcneil Jr., NY Times) ...Intimate contact may account for more Zika infections than previously suspected…. The evidence is still emerging, and recent findings are hotly disputed. All experts agree that mosquitoes are the epidemic’s main driver. But two reports now suggest that women in Latin America are much more likely to be infected than men, although both are presumed to be equally exposed to mosquitoes. The gender difference appears at the age at which sexual activity begins, and then fades among older adults.

• 07-06-2016 US urges aerial spraying amid jump in Puerto Rico Zika cases. (Danica Coto, AP) SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — As many as 50 pregnant women in Puerto Rico are becoming infected with Zika every day, top U.S. health officials said Wednesday as they urged the U.S. territory to strongly consider aerial spraying to prevent further spread of the mosquito-borne virus. The warning came as Puerto Rico debates whether to fumigate with the insecticide Naled, a proposal that has sparked protests in the U.S. territory over concerns about its impact on human health and wildlife. Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press that aerial spraying is the island's best defense to fight a virus that can cause microcephaly, a rare defect in which babies are born with abnormally small heads and brain damage. He said the island lacks an integrated mosquito control program. "If any part of the continental U.S. had the kind of spread of Zika that Puerto Rico has now, they would have sprayed months ago," he said. "This is more a question of neglect than anything else. ... If we wait until children with microcephaly are born, it will be too late. That's the problem."

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• 07-04-2016 'Invisible' Zika Virus Epidemic Frustrates Health Officials. (MAGGIE FOX, NBC News) Tom Frieden is frustrated. For half a year now, he and colleagues have been trying to get Americans worried about Zika virus. From the moment Frieden's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention realized that Zika was probably causing horrendous birth defects in Brazil, the agency has been advising pregnant women to stay away from Zika-affected zones and warning that the virus would inevitably end up in the U.S. Yet Congress has failed for five full months to appropriate money the agency said was urgently needed back in February, and polls show Americans were more worried about Ebola — which never threatened the U.S. — than they are about Zika. States need to start killing mosquitoes now if they are to prevent outbreaks of Zika, and experiments underway to develop new vaccines may have to end if the cash doesn't start flowing. Puerto Rico, an American territory, has a full-blown epidemic with thousands of verified cases and probably many thousands more that haven't been reported….

• 07-01-2016 Report on U.S. Ebola Response Identifies Preparedness Shortfalls. In a report released today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), an Independent Panel formed to review HHS's response to Ebola made several recommendations on how the nation's federal public health system should strengthen its response to major public health threats, both internationally and domestically. [Selected Findings and Recommendations] ...Differing perspectives within HHS as to the most appropriate ways to use and evaluate investigational vaccines and treatments contributed to incomplete evaluation of the efficacy of these products. ...HHS should designate a lead entity to arbitrate the differing perspectives on research and development of vaccines and treatments during an outbreak. [Link for full report: Report of the Independent Panel on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Ebola Response June 2016.]

• 07-01-2016 Zika linked to serious eye infection. (Lindsay Kalter, Boston Herald) An eye infection that can cause permanent blindness has been linked to the Zika virus, adding to the potential dangers for people traveling to Brazil and the Caribbean, ophthalmologists warn. The first case of Zika-induced uveitis — an eye infection that can cause glaucoma, cataracts and loss of vision — was reported in the New England Journal of Medicine last week.

• 06-30-2016 Americans were more worried about Ebola than they are about Zika. (Brady Dennis, Lena H. Sun and Scott Clement, Washington Post) The global spread of the Zika virus and its links to severe birth defects have yet to worry most Americans, and few are taking measures to limit their exposure to the mosquito-borne disease, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Two-thirds of Americans say they are “not too” or “not at all” worried about Zika infecting them or a family member, while one-third are at least “somewhat worried.” Fewer Americans are concerned about Zika infections today than were worried about the deadly Ebola epidemic at its height.

• 06-30-2016 March of Dimes petitions Congress to fund fight against Zika. (Katie Zezima, Washington Post) The March of Dimes is petitioning lawmakers to fund Zika prevention efforts, days after congressional efforts to fight the virus failed. The organization, which works to end premature birth and birth defects, put a petition on its website Thursday to tell lawmakers that fighting Zika should be a bipartisan effort. ...Officials from the March of Dimes and nearly 40 other advocacy and health organizations sent a letter to lawmakers earlier this week urging Congress to pass a measure that would not place restrictions on Zika funding and that would allow the budget to be expanded in subsequent years…

• 06-30-2016 Zika Is Forcing Uncomfortable Workplace Conversations. (Huffington Post) The Zika outbreak is creating complicated situations in the workplace as bosses, employees and entrepreneurs try balancing health and safety with privacy rights. [Article discusses ethical and legal issues related to business travel to areas with high levels of Zika virus.]

• 06-30-2016 Zika Fears Are Growing Among Women in U.S. (MELANIE EVANS and JENNIFER CALFAS , Wall Street Journal) Some doctors say they are being inundated with questions about the risk to pregnancy, symptoms and when to test for the virus. Joey England, a physician specializing in maternal and fetal medicine in Houston, was at her optometrist’s office waiting for an exam when an employee there abruptly asked her,

Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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“Should I get pregnant?” The employee, hoping for a child, was anxious about the Zika virus. Such encounters are becoming increasingly common for physicians….

• 06-27-2016 Governments launch Zika study of pregnant women, infants. (Andrea Widener, C&EN) NIH and a Brazilian health research agency have launched an international study of almost 10,000 pregnant women in Zika-affected areas. Infection with the Zika virus causes small heads and other neurological birth defects in some children whose mothers contracted the disease while pregnant. But the full scope of how Zika causes these defects is not known. The agencies will recruit women in their first trimester of pregnancy and then follow them and their children for a year after birth. ...The study will start in Puerto Rico and expand to Brazil, Colombia, and other areas where Zika has been transmitted to people by Aedes aegypt mosquitoes….

• 06-30-2016 Zika In The US: Most Americans Want More Federal Money To Combat Virus At Home Amid Squabble In Congress, Poll Shows. (Elizabeth Whitman, IBT Times) Most Americans want the federal government to increase funding to combat the Zika virus, a national poll released Thursday indicates, even as Congress for months has been locked in a stalemate over the matter. Meanwhile, the public’s overall knowledge about the virus and its effects remains patchy. The findings are part of the June edition of a survey of public opinion on topical health news and issues that the Kaiser Family Foundation, a California health policy nonprofit, conducts every month. According to the survey, 85 percent of those polled have heard of the Zika virus, and 72 percent said the government should invest more money in preventing it from spreading in the United States.

• 06-30-2016 Health Officials Prepare for Zika, But Local Efforts Tight. (Nomaan Merchant, AP) The poorest parts of Houston remind Dr. Peter Hotez of some of the neighborhoods in Latin America hardest hit by Zika. Broken window screens. Limited air conditioning. Trash piles that seem to re-appear even after they're cleaned up. On a hot, humid day this month, Hotez pointed at one pile that included old tires and a smashed-in television with water pooling inside. It was a textbook habitat for the mosquitoes that carry and transmit the Zika virus, and one example of the challenge facing public health officials. "I'm showing you Zika heaven," said Hotez, the tropical medicine dean at Baylor College of Medicine.

• 06-30-2016 More Zika cases in New York, all from travel abroad. (Jacqueline Cutler, New York Daily News) ...The city has confirmed 233 cases of Zika, all of which were a result of people traveling....The most frequently visited areas among the patients were the Dominican Republic, with 140 cases, Puerto Rico, with 20 cases and Guyana with 14. The remaining 59 cases were from people who traveled to other countries. ...Of the 162 New York City women with Zika, 24 are pregnant….

• 06-29-2016 Why Congress is probably not approving any Zika funding this summer. (Amber Phillips, Washington Post) Summer is here and so is the threat of the Zika virus in the United States. But Congress will probably not do anything about it after a debate over $1.1 billion to fight it collapsed in the Senate on Tuesday thanks to — you guessed it — partisan bickering. The Washington Post's Mike DeBonis reports that Senate Democrats blocked a funding package that had already passed the House of Representatives, saying the bill was filled with other political goodies for Republicans that Democrats simply couldn't support. ...Here's what happened. First, a debate over money.… Sidetracked by other issues.... A loss for Zika help, a win for partisanship….

• 06-28-2016 Democrats block Zika funding bill, blame GOP. (Burgess Everett and Jennifer Haberkorn, Politico) Democrats are planning to pin any spread of the virus into the U.S. on recalcitrant Republicans, who are equally irate. Congress is poised for an epic failure in its efforts to combat Zika before lawmakers leave Washington for a seven-week vacation — and it could come back to bite Republicans at the ballot box if there’s an outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus in the United States this summer. Senate Democrats rejected the GOP funding measure on Tuesday, 52-48, arguing that it would rob Obamacare of funding, impose new restrictions on Planned Parenthood and provide some $800 million less than the Obama administration is seeking. They’re also miffed that the measure, part of legislation to finance the Veterans Affairs Department, would allow the Confederate flag to fly at veterans cemeteries.

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• 06-23-2016 House passes $1.1B Zika bill over Democratic opposition. (Andrew Taylor, AP) WASHINGTON — The House has passed a $1.1 billion House-Senate measure to combat the Zika virus, but the GOP-drafted measure is a nonstarter with Senate Democrats and the Obama White House. The measure was unveiled late Wednesday and approved by the House early on Thursday morning by a 239-171 vote that broke along party lines....

• 06-22-2016 Abortions in Latin America may be rising because of Zika virus fears. (Helen Branswell, STAT) Abortions — legal or otherwise — may be increasing in Latin American countries where the Zika virus is spreading, new research suggests. The data, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, provide an early glimpse of a hard-to-track phenomenon that may be altering the way this unprecedented Zika outbreak is recorded in the annals of medical history. Requests for abortion- nducing drugs shot up in some Zika-affected countries after the alarm was raised about Zika infection in pregnancy, according to researchers who analyzed traffic to the website of an international nonprofit organization that provides the drugs early in pregnancy. The requests rose by between 36% and 108%. [See Aiken ARA et al., 2016]

• 06-22-2016 Inside the US Army Lab Racing to Create a Zika Vaccine. (Eric Niller, Wired) Rafael de la Barrera, Viral Diagnostic and Array Development Section Lab Supervisor at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research...and his team of about 10 scientists and technicians have been working full-time on Zika for the past six months. “It’s the virus du jour,” he jokes. ...So why is this Army research lab working on Zika when 15 other academic or government labs are doing the same thing? Soldiers, Marines and sailors aren’t like business travelers. They can’t telecommute or come home if they get sick. They have to be ready to go anywhere, anytime. And they get a lot of vaccinations. Plus, the Pentagon announced this month that 17 servicemembers and family were infected with Zika while stationed overseas. That number is likely to rise. “We have to be in the game to make sure that what ultimately gets put on the shelf can be used by our folks,” said Col. Stephen Thomas, an infectious disease physician and the Zika program lead at WRAIR. “There are all sorts of nuances of that population and the mission and what they need to be protected….”

• 06-21-2016 Democrats file discharge petition on Zika funding bill. (Sarah Ferris, The Hill) Top House Democrats are trying to force a vote on a nearly $2 billion spending package to fight the Zika virus this week, signaling a dim outlook for bipartisan talks already underway. ...just three days before Congress leaves town for its July Fourth recess – a date that public health experts have called a crucial deadline...

• 06-20-2016 The economics of Zika. (Elena Ulansky, The Hill) The outbreak of the Zika virus...will have an economic impact estimated at $3.5 billion in 2016, as stated by the World Bank earlier this year. This number may be too conservative in light of new facts indicating that the Zika epidemic will be one of the largest and most expensive infectious disease outbreaks in recent history.... [Discusses the costs of the epidemic in terms of caring for microcepahic children and other costs]

• 06-20-2016 Experts: Municipal mosquito controls ineffective against Zika virus. (Evan Belanger, TimesDaily) Fogger trucks that ply many neighborhoods with mosquito-killing pesticides in the evenings likely do little to control the possible carriers of the Zika virus, according to an Auburn University researcher and a state health official. The problem is in the timing of treatment…. the trucks used in many towns and cities across the state do a good job killing species such as the southern house mosquito, which is active in the evenings....But the Asian tiger mosquito, which is considered to be the most likely vector for a Zika outbreak in Alabama, is only active during the day.

• 06-17-2016 Cancel the Olympics: The potential threat Zika virus poses is just too great to take the risk. (Ramin Oskoui, US News & Word Report) “...Some experts, several Brazilian, suggest Zika concerns are exaggerated. A recent editorial in "The Lancet Infectious Diseases" journal noted that the Zika outbreak has been concentrated in northeastern Brazil, away from Rio. Moreover, it added, the infection-carrying mosquito is not particularly active in August, and athletes and spectators are likely to spend their time in places purged of mosquito breeding sites. One Sao Paulo-based research group predicted the Rio Olympics would result in no more than 15 Zika infections among the foreign visitors… But neither study attempted to assess the risk of even a single

Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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Olympics traveler carrying the virus back to a vulnerable home country – a central concern of recent calls to reconsider holding the games in Rio de Janeiro. If you ask me, I say cancel the Olympics. Here are five reasons why.…

• 06-17-2016 CDC director: Puerto Rico could see hundreds of Zika-infected babies with microcephaly. (Lena H. Sun, Washington Post) The number of people infected with Zika in Puerto Rico is rising at an alarming rate, putting pregnant women at even greater risk of their babies suffering severe birth defects, a top U.S. public health official said Friday.

• 06-17-2016 Australians warned of Zika virus in Indonesia. (Jewel Topsfield, Fairfax Media) Pregnant women are being advised to consider postponing travel to Indonesia with the Australian government updating its travel advice to warn the country is experiencing sporadic transmission of the mosquito- borne Zika virus. ...On its smart traveller website, the Australian government says it advises all travellers to Indonesia to protect themselves from mosquitoes.

• 06-16-2016 Health agency reports U.S. babies with Zika-related birth defects. (Bill Berkrot, Reuters) Three babies have been born in the United States with birth defects linked to likely Zika virus infections in the mothers during pregnancy, along with three cases of lost pregnancies linked to Zika, federal health officials said on Thursday. The six cases reported as of June 9 were included in a new U.S. Zika pregnancy registry created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency said it will begin regular reporting of poor outcomes of pregnancies with laboratory evidence of possible Zika virus infection in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

• 06-15-2016 Zika: The Epidemic at America's Door. Zika may have already infected 80,000 Americans, just in Puerto Rico, and Congress has refused to act — what if Miami or New York is next? (Janet Reitman, Rolling Stone) [feature article]

• 06-14-2016 Should You Intentionally Get Zika Before Trying to Conceive? (Melissa Locker, Elle) With a vaccine years away, could this be a way for women to immunize themselves long before starting a family? [Article considers the risks associated with Zika infection]

• 06-09-2016 Pittsburgh researcher infected with Zika in lab accident. (Mike Strobbe, AP) NEW YORK — The University of Pittsburgh says one of its researchers became infected with the Zika virus in a lab accident. The scientist accidentally stuck herself with a needle last month during a Zika experiment. She developed Zika symptoms last week and lab tests confirmed the infection. Pitt officials on Thursday said the researcher has recovered and returned to work.

• 06-09-2016 Pulse Check: Zika could cause 'billions of dollars' of damage to Gulf Coast, expert warns. (Dan Diamond, Politico) Zika virus is poised to spread across the U.S. Gulf Coast states this summer, and the human and financial toll could be on the scale of a massive disaster, warns a top public health expert. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor, told POLITICO's "Pulse Check" podcast that the Aedes aegypt mosquito could already be spreading Zika virus across the southern United States, but local officials don't have the resources to conduct adequate surveillance because of the monthslong battle over Zika funding in Washington. "There are some countes in Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere — the entre county's mosquito control district is a guy with a backpack. Or as we say, Chuck in the truck."

• 06-08-2016 Zika Virus Swamps Embattled Puerto Rico. (Betsy Mckay, Wall Street Journal) At the U.S.’s doorstep, one quarter of the territory’s population could be infected by year’s end, giving health authorities a rare chance to study the virus. SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—The Zika virus is creeping north toward the continental U.S., and Alberto de la Vega has started to detect its signs. In ultrasounds he gives pregnant women who are infected with the virus in this American territory, he has seen a 22-week-old fetus with serious brain damage and two others with stunted growth. He is bracing for more. “If you ask me in a month,” says Dr. de la Vega, an obstetrician-gynecologist and chief of a high-risk-pregnancy unit at the capital’s University Hospital, “we may have 10 times the detection rate.” Zika has blanketed three-quarters of this lush island over the past six months, say health authorities, who expect it to keep spreading now that it is prime mosquito season. More

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than 1,350 people have tested positive for Zika since the beginning of the epidemic here, including 168 pregnant women. One patient died. Thousands more are likely infected without symptoms, health authorities say.

• 06-07-2016 New research finds low risk of Zika virus at Olympics. (JULIE STEENHUYSEN, Reuters) Chigago New research attempting to calculate the risk of the Zika virus at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro may reassure organizers and... 500,000 athletes and fans expected.... Controversy about the global gathering in August has grown as more about the disease becomes known. ...The World Health Organization, acknowledging the concern, has called a meeting of its Zika experts… New projections obtained by Reuters suggest the risk is small. One Sao Paulo-based research group predicted the Rio Olympics would result in no more than 15 Zika infections among the foreign visitors.... The projection echoes that of a separate group ...at the University of Sao Paulo... It found the Olympics would result in no more than 16 additional cases of the disease. Neither study attempted to assess the risk of ...carrying the virus back to a vulnerable home country - a central concern…. But a team of U.S. government epidemiologists calculated that Olympics visitors would account for . 25 percent of the total risk of spreading Zika through air travel….based on 2015 data showing about 240 million people moved to and from areas that now have active transmission….

• 06-06-2016 Generation of Brazilian babies born with microcephaly due to Zika virus face uncertain future. (VASCO COTOVIO and NICK PATON WALSH, CNN) Recife, Brazil — Maria Vitoria is eight months old, but her fragile frame has already seen so much suffering. She was born with microcephaly, likely as a result of the Zika virus, and her family abandoned her at birth. Now she is growing, but the development of her brain is stunted by the birth defect, and slowly, day by day, her adopted parents Kely and Josimar Oliveira are learning what this means: can she see, does she hear them?

• 06-04-2016 More Money Allocated to Fight Zika Virus [by Jamaica] (Chad Bryan, Jamaica Information Service) Permanent Secretary in the Health Ministry, Dr. Kevin Harvey, says the Ministry has committed an additional $100 million to fight the Zika virus (ZikV).

• 06-03-2016 Billions needed to combat Zika virus, possible vaccine by September. (Susanna Heller, Yahoo News) The National Institutes of Health is “very aggressively pursuing” a potential vaccine to combat the Zika virus and hopes to have an early safety study of a vaccine by September 2016, said National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci, MD. Fauci spoke with Yahoo guest anchor Debbye Turner Bell on Friday about the importance of President Obama’s outstanding request for $1.9 billion to combat the disease.

• 06-02-2016 The Zika Olympics. (Julie Beck, The Atlantic) The upcoming 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro have sparked a debate about how much risk is too much. Rio de Janeiro’s hostship of the 2016 Summer Olympics has had the unfortunate distinction of becoming a lightning rod for Zika panic. ...For Brazil, the country that’s been the seat of much of the outbreak, to host an event as large and global as the Olympics has caused much concern. Senators recently wrote to the U.S. Olympic Committee wanting to know how it plans to protect athletes.... South Korea’s team will be wearing special mosquito-proof uniforms. The athletes themselves seem to be of many minds as to whether they’re worried….

• 06-02-2016 Doctors detail story of devastated mom of Zika-affected baby born in N.Y. area. (Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post) ...On Wednesday, doctors treating one of those women in the New York area announced the heartbreaking news that her child — a girl and the first to be born to a Zika-infected mother on the U.S. mainland — has severe birth defects. Not only does the baby have microcephaly, they said, but she is also suffering from intestinal issues and “structural abnormalities of the eye”….

• 06-02-2016 Florida Gov. Rick Scott Warns of Imminent Zika 'Disaster' Without Federal Funds: 'We Are Not Fully Prepared' (People) ..."There is no doubt that we fall further and further behind fighting the spread of this virus with every day that passes and we are not fully prepared," Scott's letter reads. "... We need federal action now to keep our citizens safe and healthy...

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• 05-31-2016 Puerto Rico's tourist industry feels economic sting of Zika. (AP) SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — It was the wedding of one of her best friends, and Natalie Kao was going to be a bridesmaid in a fun, tropical setting on a small island just off the east coast of Puerto Rico. But the prevalence of the Zika virus across the U.S. territory gave her pause. ...She sent her regrets, as did several dozen other members of the wedding party….

• 05-31-2016 Conspiracy theories muddy Zika public health message, study finds. (Meredith Cohn, The Baltimore Sun) Conspiracy theories about the Zika virus posted online could undermine efforts to control spread of the disease and the public's willingness to accept a vaccine, according to a study led by Johns Hopkins University researchers. The posts on social media are not backed by science but spread easily online, said the researchers…. [See Dredze M, Broniatowski DA, Hilyard KM. Zika vaccine misconceptions… ]

• 05-27-2016 Somehow, the world’s governments can’t find more than $4 million for the WHO to fight Zika. (Annalisa Merelli, Quartz) ...In March WHO devised a six-month, $56 million plan to tackle the epidemic. It included tracking new outbreaks, enhancing control of the mosquito population in areas at risk, helping pregnant women who might be exposed to the virus, and speeding up research to understand the disease and develop therapies and vaccines. WHO had asked for $1 billion for Ebola, so $56 million for Zika ought to be much easier to raise. But as of May 19, a WHO representative confirmed in an email to Quartz that only $3.86 million had been raised—$3.8 million of which is allocated by a contingency WHO fund that is specifically kept for emergencies.

• 05-28-2016 Zika fears: Why WHO rejected call by scientists to move Rio Olympics. (Bamzi Banchiri, Christian Science Monitor) The WHO rejected a letter by 150 scientists and physicians urging it to postpone or move the Rio Olympics because of public health concerns over Zika virus. Zika fears: Why WHO rejected call by scientists to move Rio Olympics. The WHO rejected a letter by 150 scientists and physicians urging it to postpone or move the Rio Olympics because of public health concerns over Zika virus. But the WHO rejected the request saying that "cancelling or changing the location of the 2016 Olympics will not significantly alter the international spread of Zika virus," according to a statement released Friday.

• 05-28-2016 Several medical groups urge Congress to provide required funding for Zika virus prevention, treatment. (News-Medical.net) The American College of Physicians (ACP) along with the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) sent a letter today to House and Senate leaders urging them to immediately pass legislation that would provide the highest possible funding level for research, prevention, control, and treatment of illnesses associated with the Zika virus that is commensurate with the public health emergency that the virus represents.

• 05-27-2016 Chasing an epidemic: On the road with Brazil's Zika detectives. (Alexandra Zavis, LA Times) n a place where the bite of a common mosquito has brought crippling birth defects and early death, they are the detectives sent to gather clues about the crime. The four women have been plying the back roads of northeastern Brazil for days. Their quarry: new mothers who may have been infected with the Zika virus during their pregnancies.

• 05-26-2016 Congress leaves town with no Zika resolution, lengthy negotiations ahead. (Paul Kane and Mike DeBonis, Washington Post) Congress abandoned the Capitol Thursday for an almost two-week break without addressing how to combat Zika, even as public health officials issue dire warnings about the spread of the mosquito-driven virus with summer approaching….

• 05-26-2016 How Businesses Should Respond to the Zika Virus. (Fortune Commentary) “...For the general problem of infectous zoonotc disease risks, targeted direct interventon by businesses in support of vaccine development, urban planning, vector control, and other preventve measures, has the potential both to serve the bottom line and to reduce the risks to all….”

• 05-25-2016 How Zika virus could infect the municipal-bond market. Municipal bonds from cities in the danger zones could see selling pressures. (Ellie Ismailidou, MarketWatch) As U.S. officials race to prevent an outbreak of the Zika virus, financial markets are beginning to feel the bite. Municipal bonds — a relatively quiet Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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corner of the financial universe but a potential lens on deeper economic impact — could see fallout from a spread of the virus, according to a report by Loop Capital released this week. There’s already some history for reference — devastation from Hurricane Katrina had a notable impact on regional finances and beyond. National Center for Atmospheric Research has analyzed Zika risk levels for U.S. cities. (See Figure 2) Figure 2: Zika risk levels for US Cities (National Center for Atmospheric Research)

• 05-26-2016 House takes first step to merge Zika bills. (Sarah Ferris, The Hill) House and Senate GOP leaders



took the first step Thursday toward closing the gap between their vastly different approaches to funding the nation’s response to the Zika virus. The House voted to set up a conference committee to merge its $622 million funding package with the Senate’s $1.1 billion version. It also includes both chambers’ appropriations bills for military construction and veterans affairs. Members of the conference committee face an increasingly difficult task when it comes to Zika: The bills passed by the House and Senate last week are different in terms of size, timing and how they offset their costs. One is broadly bipartisan; the other faces a veto threat from the White House. Both packages fall short of the Obama administration’s funding request of $1.9 billion to prevent and fight the disease in the U.S. 05-25-2016 How Do We Know the Zika Virus Will Cost the World $3.5 Billion? (Jay L. Zagorsky, The Conversation UK) An economist examines how we put a price tag on Zika and other health catastrophes. The World Bank estimates Zika will cost the world US$3.5 billion in 2016. Three and a half billion dollars is a huge amount of money. How did the World Bank calculate this figure? How do we put a price tag on Zika and other health catastrophes like Ebola, dengue fever or even more common problems like the flu? Can we even trust these figures? In general, these figures are generated by adding together estimates of four categories of spending: direct outlays, lost productivity, loss from death and the impact of avoidance….

• 05-25-2016 WILL CONSPIRACY THEORIES ON TWITTER HAMPER ZIKA VACCINE? (Phil Sneiderman, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY) Researchers warn that misinformation and conspiracy theories posted on Twitter could undermine efforts to deliver a Zika vaccine. The team analyzed thousands of Twitter posts and found pseudoscientific assertions and claims of shadowy plots that they say could cause vulnerable people to refuse Zika vaccinations when they do become available….

• 05-24-2016 How Zika Spiraled Out of Control. (Dina Fine Maron, Scientific American) The virus was a tiny, barely known annoyance. Scientists now think environmental changes made Zika explode into a global crisis. ... Other Zika cases have undoubtedly been missed altogether, scientists say. Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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That suggests researchers have underestimated this virus all along. Perhaps other benign-seeming threats could be more dangerous than previously thought as well, they worry. “You should not necessarily be scared, but you have to be open-minded and quick to respond,” says the CDC’s Staples. If Zika as well as other emerging viruses have unexpected effects as they reach different populations, it is a serious problem. Without better global surveillance of diseases in remote locations, health agencies will find it hard to foresee or prepare for an organism that could be quickly transported to an urban area and spiral out of control….

• 05-24-2016 House GOP invokes Zika to pass bill relaxing pesticide rules. (ANDREW TAYLOR, AP) WASHINGTON — Republicans controlling the House are invoking the threat of the Zika virus in passing a bill to exempt pesticide spraying from Clean Water Act permitting requirements. Supporters say the permits are duplicative since pesticides are generally regulated by a different environmental law. ...The legislation passed by a 258-156 vote. It started out as the "Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act" but has since morphed into the "Zika Vector Control Act." "The Zika bill is not a Zika bill at all, it is a pesticide bill," said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md. Most Democrats and the Obama White House oppose the legislation, calling it an attack on environmental laws and are angry that Republicans are claiming it is needed to fight the mosquitoes that can transmit Zika….

• 05-23-2016 Zika crisis fuelled by 'massive' mosquito control failures: WHO. (AFP via Yahoo! News) The spiralling crisis surrounding the Zika virus is the result of decades of policy failures on mosquito control and poor access to family planning services, the World Health Organization said Monday. "The spread of Zika... (is) the price being paid for a massive policy failure that dropped the ball on mosquito control in the 1970s," WHO chief Margaret Chan told the opening of the UN health agency's annual assembly....

• 05-23-2016 Concern in Haiti over emerging condition linked to Zika. (DAVID McFADDEN, AP) ...Haiti's health





ministry has reported no cases of microcephaly but 11 cases of Guillain-Barre, including two definitively linked to Zika by lab tests. But the extent of Haiti's Zika outbreak and the number of accompanying neurological disorders is a big unknown. ...Even after the worst cholera epidemic in recent history, Haiti's severely under-resourced health sector still does not have routine data collection systems that would allow experts to track and document disease outbreaks across one of the world's poorest countries. Frontline physicians in Haiti say the assumption is that the uptick of Guillain-Barre cases is due to Zika because it coincides with the spreading epidemic. The WHO says Guillain-Barre reports have increased in 13 countries or territories where Zika is circulatiting. 05-22-2016 Zika is coming, but we’re far from ready. (Ronald A. Klain, Washington Post) The good news is that both the House and Senate have finally passed bills that would provide some funding to combat the Zika virus. The bad news is that this action comes more than three months after President Obama requested the aid. Moreover, the House bill provides only one-third of the response needed; pays for this limited, ineffective response by diverting money allocated to fight other infectious diseases; and necessitates a conference committttee to resolve differences with the Senate bill, meaning we still do not know when any money will finally get through Congress to fund the response. Of all the things that Congress could be truculent about, fighting an epidemic is the worst imaginable. Zika is not “coming” to the United States: It is already here…. 05-21-2016 Trying to get jump on Zika preparations with money in limbo. (Lauran Neergaard, AP) WASHINGTON — Beg, borrow and steal: Zika preparation involves a bit of all three as federal, state and local health officials try to get a jump on the mosquito-borne virus while Congress haggles over how much money they really need. With that financing in limbo, health officials are shifting resources and setting priorities.... All but six states so far have seen travel-associated cases of Zika. "Stealing money from myself" is how Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health describes raiding his agency's malaria, tuberculosis and influenza programs to fund a Zika vaccine. He needs more cash by the end of June to keep the vaccine on schedule. And there's no guarantee those other critical diseases will recoup about $20 million. "If we don't get something soon, then we're going to have a real problem," Fauci said. Adding to the stress: What if another health emergency comes along at the same time? "It's Zika now, but three months from now, who knows what it might be?" said Dr. Tim Jones, state epidemiologist in Tennessee, where few counties have mosquito eradication efforts. Yet with funding pleas unanswered, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shifted $44 million to Zika from emer-

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gency preparedness grants that help state and local health departments with crises from flu outbreaks to hurricanes. "You have to be careful when you take cuts from core infrastructure for the disease of the day," Tennessee's Jones said. "That's a risky way to do things." ….Virginia took about $700,000 remaining from a federal Ebola grant to hire two mosquito biologists, pay for some testing of mosquitoes and travelers, and educate the public, including plans to hang information on 450,000 doors. This marks Virginia's first mosquito surveillance program since 2007…. 05-20-2016 Timeline: Zika's origin and global spread. (Reuters) The following timeline charts the origin and spread of the Zika virus from its discovery nearly 70 years ago. [See next page]

• 05-20-2016 UN: Growing environmental threat from animal-to-man diseases. (EDITH M. LEDERER, AP)



UNITED NATIONS — The most worrying environmental threats facing the world today range from the rise in diseases transmitted from animals to humans to the increasing accumulation of toxic chemicals in food crops as a result of drought and high temperatures, according to a U.N. report…According to the report, the 20th century saw dramatic reductions in ecosystems and biodiversity — and equally dramatic increases in the numbers of people and domestic animals inhabiting the Earth. This increased the opportunity for viruses, bacteria and other pathogenic agents to pass from wild and domestic animals through the environment to cause diseases in people, the report said. These diseases — called "zoonotic" or "zoonoses" diseases — include Ebola, bird flu, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), sudden acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Rift Valley fever, West Nile virus and Zika virus, it said. In the last two decades these emerging diseases have had direct costs of more than $100 billion, the report said, and "if these outbreaks had become human pandemics, the losses would have amounted to several trillion dollars." According to the report, "around 60 per cent of all infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic as are 75 per cent of all emerging infectious diseases." And "on average, one new infectious disease emerges in humans every four months," it said. While many zoonotic diseases originate in wildlife, livestock often serve as a bridge, the report said, citing the case of bird flu which first circulated in wild birds, then infected domestic poultry which in turn passed the virus to humans…. 05-20-2016 Pregnant women in US with Zika spikes on new counting method. (MIKE STOBBE, AP) NEW YORK (AP) — The number of pregnant women in the United States infected with Zika virus is suddenly tripling, due to a change in how the government is reporting cases. Previously, officials had reported how many pregnant women had both Zika symptoms and positive blood tests. In a change announced Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's count will include all women who tested positive, regardless of symptoms. There are now 157 pregnant women infected with Zika in the 50 states, up from the 48 reported last week under the old definition. Experts emphasized that there does not appear to be any dramatic actual increase of pregnant women with the disease in recent months. There was a spike in diagnoses in February and March, but relatively few new cases since then, according to CDC data that includes women who experienced symptoms and those who didn't.

• 05-17-2016 Zika virus may reach Europe this summer. (BBC News) The Zika virus could spread to Europe this summer, although the likelihood of an outbreak is low to moderate, the World Health Organization has said. Areas most at risk are those where Aedes mosquitoes may spread the virus, like the Black Sea coast of Russia and Georgia and the island of Madeira. Countries with a moderate risk include France, Spain, Italy and Greece, while the risk in the UK is low. The UN agency is not issuing any new travel advice at this time.

• 05-17-2016 Senate easily advances $1.1 billion in Zika funding. WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate voted decisively on Tuesday in favor of a bipartisan $1.1 billion measure to combat the Zika virus this year and next, cuttitting back President Barack Obama's request but offering significantly more money to fight Zika than would House GOP conservatives. The 68-29 vote propelled the measure over a filibuster and sets the stage to add the Zika funding to an unrelated spending bill. It comes three months after Obama requested $1.9 billion to battle the virus, which can cause severe birth defects. "We see the people of this country facing a public health threat," said Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who supports the full Obama request. "Our response should be 'Let's deal with it the way that medical experts are saying we need to deal with it.'" A showdown looms with the House, which is scheduled to debate its $622 million anti-Zika measure on Wednesday. The House would fund Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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the Zika battle for a shorter duration — through September — and is "offset" with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. 05-16-2016 What is taking Congress so long on Zika funding? (Amber Phillips, WaPo) We should first say that no one in Washington is questioning the threat that the Zika virus constitutes. The prospect that horrific, lifelong birth defects could be flying around in mosquito form, ready to strike at backyard barbecues and Fourth of July parties this summer, is terrifying enough. But it's taken three months since President Obama first requested almost $2 billion to fight the spread of Zika for Congress to act. This week, they're voting on several proposals that are so different they'll probably have to take even more time to reconcile them. Because lawmakers have different ideas on the best way to fund the Zika fight — especially whether any new money should be devoted to it at all — it could be weeks before Congress sends a check to government agencies trying to keep America safe from the virus. The end result will probably be a lot less than health officials in the Obama administration want to fight Zika and coming much later than they wanted it. The House proposal for $620 million, for instance, doesn't extend any cash beyond this fall, when the fiscal year we're in comes to a close. The reason is the same it always is with Congress: money. Specifically, different ideas between Republicans and Democrats about what's worth going further into debt for…. 05-16-2016 Public Health Organizations Unite in Call to Restore State and Local Emergency Funding and Approve Emergency Supplemental for Zika. (Association of State and Territorial Health Officials) ARLINGTON, Va. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the weather warms and the threat of Zika virus intensifies, state and local health agencies are faced with the dilemma of a significant funding cut, as documented in two new reports released by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL), and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE). Absent dedicated funding from Congress to prepare and respond to the threat of Zika virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month announced it will need to reprogram $44.25 million from the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) fund to help combat Zika. State and local health agencies depend on PHEP funding to prepare and respond to health emergencies, everything from natural disasters to terrorist or mass casualty events. Preparing for and responding to emerging infectious disease is also a primary use of PHEP funding, meaning state and local health agencies will have less capability to find, control, and mitigate localized outbreaks of Zika as a result of the reallocation. ASTHO, in cooperation with CSTE, APHL, and NACCHO, asked their members what the consequences of the PHEP reprogramming would be, should the cuts take effect on July 1. The results raise significant concern showing that state and local emergency response will be compromised. Major findings from the surveys include the following: • Community Preparedness Will Suffer the Most • Laboratory Testing and Surveillance Capacity Will Diminish • Public Health Staff Cuts • Zika Response at State and Local Level Will Be Compromised as a Result of the Reallocation 05-16-2016 Suddenly Paralyzed, 2 Men Struggle To Recover From Guillain-Barre. (Rae Ellen Bichell and Katie Park, NPR Morning Edition) Guillain-Barre syndrome can render healthy people temporarily paralyzed. It's something you're likely to hear more about as Zika continues to spread. And for those who get it, it is one wild ride. Exposure to pathogens can set the stage for Guillain-Barre syndrome. It can leave people paralyzed for weeks. [See Figure 3.] Figure 3: Exposure to pathogens can set the stage for Guillain-Barre syndrome. It can leave people paralyzed for weeks. (Rae Ellen Bichell and Katie Park/NPR)

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• 05-16-2016 Citizen-scientists: Uncle Sam wants you to fight Zika! (JENNIFER KAY, AP) MIAMI (AP) — The mos-



quitoes that can spread Zika are already buzzing among us. The U.S. government could use some help figuring out exactly where. No experience is necessary for what the U.S. Department of Agriculture envisions as a nationwide experiment in citizen-science. Teenagers already have proven themselves up to the task in tryouts involving a small number of high school students and science teachers. Now it's time for the Invasive Mosquito Project to scale up and fast, since Zika has been linked to serious birth defects and health officials are preparing for the possibility of small outbreaks in the United States. But there's little money in government budgets to track its spread. "We don't have a lot of data — good, solid data," said John-Paul Mutebi, an entomologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. What the USDA is proposing is the kind of population survey not seen in the continental United States since World War II, when the country eradicated mosquito-borne viruses. In a 1945 film , the U.S. government encouraged schoolkids and scout troops to do their part in keeping their neighborhoods free from dengue and yellow fever. Volunteers now are needed to collect mosquito eggs in their communities and upload the data to populate an online map, which in turn will provide real-time information about hot spots to help researchers and mosquito controllers respond. • 05-13-2016 CDC Announces Funds for States and Territories to Prepare for Zika U.S. can't delay preparing for local transmission. (CDC) ATLANTA, May 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- U.S. states and territories can now apply to CDC for funds to fight Zika locally. More than $85 million in redirected funds identified by the Department of Health and Human Services is being made available to support efforts to protect Americans from Zika infection and associated adverse health outcomes, including the serious birth defect microcephaly. "These funds will allow states and territories to continue implementation of their Zika preparedness plans, but are not enough to support a comprehensive Zika response and can only temporarily address what is needed," said Stephen C. Redd, M.D. (RADM, USPHS), director of CDC's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response. "Without the full amount of requested emergency supplemental funding, many activities that need to start now are being delayed or may have to be stopped within months." Under the latest announcement, $25 million in FY 2016 preparedness and response funding will go to 53 states, cities, and territories at risk for outbreaks of Zika virus infection. Recipients will receive funds based on the geographic locations of the two mosquitoes known to transmit Zika virus, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus; history of mosquito borne disease outbreaks; and size of population. Jurisdictions will use the funds to strengthen incident management and emergency operations coordination; information management and sharing; and community recovery and resilience. State, local and territorial health officials can use the funds to rapidly identify and investigate a possible outbreak of Zika virus disease in their communities; coordinate a comprehensive response across all levels of government and non-governmental partners (including the healthcare sector); and identify and connect to community services families affected by Zika virus disease. Applications for the funds are due to CDC by June 13, 2016. Funds will be disbursed during the summer and remain available through July 2017. Earlier this year, states and cities currently participating in the Epidemiology and Lab Capacity (ELC) program became eligible for more than $60 million to: • build laboratory capacity, • enhance epidemiological surveillance and investigation, • improve mosquito control and monitoring, • keep blood supplies safe, and • contribute data to the U.S. Zika Pregnancy registry. Applications for these funds are due May 27, 2016, and will be disbursed during the summer. 05-13-2016 Statement Of Dr. Edward R.B. McCabe, Chief Medical Officer, March Of Dimes On First Case Of ZikaRelated Microcephaly In Puerto Rico. (March of Dimes) WASHINGTON, May 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- “Our hearts go out to the family whose infant developed severe microcephaly because the mother was infected with Zika virus during pregnancy. To our knowledge this is the first child with microcephaly caused by Zika in Puerto Rico. Sadly, this is not likely to be the last case of Zika-caused microcephaly in the United States. As summer approaches, there is a very real threat that Zika virus could gain a foothold in the United States. If that happens, great numbers of pregnant women and women of childbearing age will be at risk for Zika infection. The Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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March of Dimes and a coalition of dozens of prominent health-related organizations have called upon the U.S. Congress to provide emergency funding immediately to combat Zika virus. With every passing week of delay, it becomes less likely that funds – even if passed – can make a meaningful difference this summer. Puerto Rican authorities are doing the best they can with the limited resources available to them, but we are seeing the consequences of political indecision on the public's health. The dreadful consequences of inaction will be borne by the most vulnerable: our nation's infants and their families. Once again, the March of Dimes urges Congress to act immediately to provide the resources needed to prevent the Zika virus from becoming endemic in the United States."



05-12-2016 Senate deal reached on reduced Zika funding measure. (ANDREW TAYLOR) WASHINGTON (AP) — Top Senate negotiators announced agreement Thursday on a $1.1 billion emergency funding measure to battle the Zika virus. That's less than President Barack Obama's $1.9 billion request, which has upset some senior Democrats. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told reporters that she still prefers Obama's proposal but has reached agreement with Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., on the smaller measure, which is likely to be added next week to a bill funding veterans and transportation programs. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., immediately set up a floor vote on the measure for next week. The administration requested emergency funding to battle Zika in February but Republicans controlling Congress have been slow to react, and instead forced the administration last month to tap more than $500 million worth of unspent Ebola funding to battle Zika. The compromise measure fails to restore most of that money. "I have pushed for the $1.9 (billion) since the beginning. I think it's the right package," Murray said. "But I have reached an agreement with Blunt on what we can put into a package, and we'll have a vote on it." The White House was heartened by the development. "Frankly, at this point, given the delays and given the heightened stakes, we welcome any sort of forward momentum in Congress," said press secretary Josh Earnest. But top Senate Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada gave the proposal a frosty reception, saying it is "not enough, especially when the amount will likely be reduced further by House Republicans." Reid and Democrats unhappy with the plan could try to block it, but there's no obvious way to pass something more generous.



05-11-2016 This week in Zika: First mouse study proof that Zika causes microcephaly. Three new studies published May 11 could cement the theory that Zika virus infection in utero causes birth defects. One shows that mice engineered to be susceptible to Zika can pass the virus to offspring via the placenta. In these pregnant mice, which have severely crippled immune systems, Zika infection can kill fetuses and developing brain cells, too, viral immunologist Michael Diamond of Washington University in St. Louis and colleagues report in Cell [see Miner et al., 2016 below]. But the researchers can' say for certain whether the virus itself snuffs out cells, or whether damage to the placenta starves cells of oxygen. Answers might come from two other mouse studies. Injecting Zika virus straight into the brains of fetal mice halts cell growth and kills cells, Cui Li of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and colleagues report in Cell Stem Cell [see Li et al., 2016 below]. Just five days after infection, embryonic mice already have smaller-than- normal brains. The results draw a direct link between Zika infection and microcephaly, the authors write. An even stronger link comes from Fernanda Cugola of the University of Sa Paulo in Brazil and colleagues [see Cugola et al. 2016 below]. They infected a strain of mice called SJL with the Brazilian Zika virus — and the researchers didn' have to tinker with the mice' immune systems to do it. Infected SJL mice then transmitted the virus from placenta to pups, and newborn animals showed signs of microcephaly, Cugola's team reports in Nature. But mice of a genetically different strain, called C57BL/6, resisted Zika-related brain-damage. The results suggest genetic differences could help explain why Zika strikes the babies of some pregnant women but not others, the authors propose.



05-10-2016 CDC: Doctors should test for Zika in urine as well as in blood. (Lena H. Sun, WaPo) Federal health officials are recommending that people suspected of having Zika infections get tested for evidence of the virus in their urine in addition to undergoing blood tests. The shift comes as new data show that traces of the virus can remain longer in urine than in blood, making for more accurate diagnosis. ...On the basis of the new data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising clinicians to test both blood and urine within the first two weeks of symptoms….

Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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Figure 2: Number of Zika cases in the United States









05-05-09-2016 Mosquito season brings no urgency for money to fight Zika. (Andrew Taylor, AP) WASHINGTON — The White House and Democrats are pressuring congressional Republicans to act on President Barack Obama's demands for money to combat Zika, but even the onset of mosquito season that probably will spread the virus has failed to create a sense of urgency. Republicans from states at greatest risk, such as Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Georgia, have been slow to endorse Obama's more than 2-month-old request for $1.9 billion to battle the virus, which causes grave birth defects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently reports more than 470 cases in the continental U.S., all so far associated with travel to Zika-affected areas. Polls show that the public isn't anywhere nearly as scared of Zika as it was about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the handful of cases in the U.S. in 2014. Aides to GOP lawmakers, even those representing Southern areas most vulnerable to Zika, say they've yet to hear from many anxious constituents… 05-06-2016 UN establishes a trust fund to help combat the Zika virus. (AP) United Nations — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has established a U.N. trust fund to help finance urgent priorities in combatting the Zika virus. A U.N. announcement Friday said money is needed to help countries implement their national plans to respond to the Zika outbreak "and address the broader social and economic challenges that lie ahead." 04-30-2016 Congress heads out with no resolution on Zika, Puerto Rico. (Andrew Taylor, AP) WASHINGTON — Congress accomplished relatively little in a short work period, missing deadlines on the budget and on helping Puerto Rico with its financial crisis as lawmakers began a weeklong break. They left behind few clues about how they would address must-do items such as finding money to counter the Zika virus…. 04-29-2016 Puerto Rico reports 1st US Zika-related death amid outbreak. (Danica Coto, Mike Stobbe, AP) SAN Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico announced Friday that it has recorded the first Zika-related U.S. death amid an outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus in the U.S. territory. Health Secretary Ana Rius said the victim is a 70-yearold man from the San Juan metro area who died in late February. The U.S. territory is battling more than 700 Zika cases and seeks federal funds to help prevent an epidemic at a time of worsening economic crisis. Officials said the unidentified man recovered from initial Zika symptoms, but then developed a condition in which antibodies that formed in reaction to the Zika infection started attacking blood platelet cells. He died after suffering internal bleeding. Rius said the man died less than 24 hours after seeking help at a health center. She said three other cases of the condition known as severe thrombocytopenia have been reported in Puerto Rico, and that those patients recovered successfully.



04-28-2016 Obama wants $1.9B to fight Zika: Where does it stand? (Andrew Taylor, AP) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's $1.9 billion request for emergency money to combat the Zika virus has been sitting before Congress for more than two months, and there's no obvious path forward despite a growing threat in the hot summer months and increasing public anxiety.



04-18-2106 Still many questions about Zika's threat to pregnant women. (Auran Neergaard, AP) WASHINGTON — Zika may stand convicted of causing devastating birth defects but there still are lots of questions about how much of a threat the virus poses to pregnant women [in the USA], and what to do about it..



04-18-2016 Mosquito that transmits Zika found in Chile. (AP) SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile's health ministry says the mosquito that transmits the Zika virus has been found in the South American country.



04-18-2016 Senate Democrats press for $1.9B to fight Zika virus. (Andrew Taylor, AP) WASHINGTON — Democrats are pressing top Senate Republicans to stop dragging their feet and act immediately on President Barack Obama's request for $1.9 billion to combat the Zika virus. More than 40 of the chamber's Democrats Monday signed on to a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., demanding a Senate vote on additional Zika funds. The White House says the money is urgently needed to fight the spread of mosquitoes that transmit the virus, develop a vaccine and help other countries battle Zika.



04-13-2016 CDC: Zika definitely causes severe birth defects. (Mike Stobbe, AP) NEW YORK — Confirming the worst fears of many pregnant women in the United States and Latin America, U.S. health officials said Wednesday there is no longer any doubt the Zika virus causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and other severe brain defects. …Most outside experts were cautious about drawing such a connection. But now the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says enough evidence is in. "There is no longer any doubt that Zika causes microcephaly," CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said. The CDC said it also is clear Zika causes other serious defects, including damaging calcium buildups in the developing brain. Among the evidence that clinched the case: Signs of the Zika virus, which is spread primarily through mosquito bites and can also be transmitted through sex, have been found in the brain tissue, spinal fluid and amniotic fluid of microcephaly babies. …The CDC announced its conclusion in a report published online by the New England Journal of Medicine. [see Rasmussen et al. 2016, below]



04-12-2016 Obama Expected to Sign Bill on Zika Drug Development: White House. (REUTERS) WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to sign a bill to provide financial incentives to companies developing treatments for the Zika virus, a White House spokeswoman said, but the bill passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday is insufficient to meet the challenge. "We hope that this legislation encourages private sector partners to address the challenge of Zika, but it contains no funding and is ultimately insufficient on its own, since it doesn't provide the $1.9 billion in funding that our public health experts have said is needed right now to prepare Americans for the imminent local transmission of Zika in this country," spokeswoman Katie Hill said. See also: Congress Approves Bill to Spur Zika Treatments (Bloomberg BNA). 04-11-2016 Zika Virus Is Scary and We Need Money to Fight It, Officials Say. (Maggie Fox, NBC News) The more doctors learn about the Zika virus, the more frightening it looks, and money's urgently needed to fight it, two top health officials said Monday. Doctors from the [CDC] and Prevention and the [NIH} appeared before White House reporters to press their case for Congress to OK $1.9 billion in emergency funding to fight the virus. "Most of what we've learned is not reassuring," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, CDC's principal deputy director. "Everything we know



Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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about this virus seems to be scarier than we initially thought." Just hours before they spoke, scientists released two more studies: one showing the virus seems to home in on developing brain cells and kill them, and one showing it may cause rare nerve damage that resembles multiple sclerosis.



04-10-2016 Zika Virus May Now Be Tied to Another Brain Disease. (American Academy of Neurology, Press Release) VANCOUVER, BC-- The Zika virus may be associated with an autoimmune disorder that attacks the brain's myelin similar to multiple sclerosis… acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), an attack of swelling of the brain and spinal cord that attacks the myelin, which is the coating around nerve fibers. …brain scans showed signs of damage to the brain's white matter.…



04-07-2016 Poll: Some key gaps in Americans' knowledge about Zika virus. (Lauran Neergaard & Emily Swanson, AP) WASHINGTON — Americans don't know a lot about the Zika … according to a new poll that found about 4 in 10 say they've heard little to nothing about the mosquito-borne threat. Even among people who've been following the Zika saga at least a little, many aren't sure whether there's a vaccine or treatment — not yet — or if there's any way the virus can spread other than through mosquito bites….



04-06-2016 Obama Administration to Transfer Ebola Funds to Zika Fight. (Donald G. McNeil Jr., New York Times) …to break the two-month deadlock over funding to fight the encroaching Zika virus, Obama administration officials announced on Wednesday that, as congressional Republicans had demanded, they would transfer $510 million originally intended to protect against Ebola to the Zika battle. Officials from the OMB, HHS, and State said they would move a total of $589 million to efforts to contain Zika. In addition to funds moved from the Ebola budget, an additional $79 million would come from several other accounts, including money previously allotted to the national strategic stockpile of vaccines and other emergency supplies for epidemics…. Despite the transfers, “these repurposed funds are not enough to support a comprehensive Zika response and can only temporarily address what is needed. …Our $1.9 billion request remains our $1.9 billion request,” said Shaun Donovan, director of OMB….



04-05-2016 Is Zika a permanent threat or a fleeting scare? (Helen Branswell, STAT) The Zika virus has been in the headlines so often over the past few months that it’s tempting to assume this new threat is here for good: That like dengue and West Nile virus, this mosquito-spread disease is now going to be a regular fixture — and a perennial risk for pregnant women. There are more questions than answers about what the future holds for the interplay between humans and the Zika virus. [Article includes interviews with several experts with a range of viewpoints]



04-04-2016 Here’s why the WHO responded so differently to Zika and Ebola. (Amy S. Patterson, Washington Post) The World Health Organization jumped into action on the Zika outbreak in 2016. That’s in sharp contrast with the WHO’s much slower response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014. Political science research on international organizations and on how issues are framed can help explain the difference….



04-04-2016 Entomologists Call for Education and Cooperation to Stop Zika, Dengue, and Chikungunya. (Entomological Society of America press release) ANNAPOLIS, Md.-- The Entomological Society of America (ESA) and Sociedade Entomológica do Brasil (SEB) held a meeting in Brazil on March 13, 2016 to discuss the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is the primary transmitter of Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever. The experts agreed that the most critical needs for controlling the mosquito and the diseases are: 1) Connecting scientists to communities through public awareness campaigns on how people can protect themselves from mosquitoes, and educational efffforts to dispel misinformation regarding insect control measures. 2) Establishing mosquito control programs as a critical element of the campaign against Aedes aegypti, in addition to the work being done by the medical community. Prioritizing mosquito control would include funding for integrating well-established and novel control technologies as well as improving the collection and dissemination of data on mosquito populations and the efficacy of control measures. 3) Creating a coalition of international mosquito-control-related organizations to advocate for vector control as a critical element against Aedes aegypti and the diseases it transmits.



04-01-2016 Zika Vaccine Could Solve One Problem While Stoking Another: Growing concerns about a Zika–autoimmune disease link are casting a shadow over vaccine development. (Dina Fine Maron, Scientific American) When Thomas Monath, an expert on vaccines combating mosquito-borne diseases, thinks about developing an inoculation against Zika virus, he has a major concern: Guillain–Barré syndrome. …recently it appears to be occurring Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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more frequently than usual within at least eight countries and territories reporting Zika outbreaks. Mounting evidence suggests exposure to the mosquito-borne Zika is the culprit. … Zika-linked Guillain (GBS) is stoking concerns that a vaccine designed to protect patients against Zika could inadvertently provoke more cases of the autoimmune condition. … Strong evidence already linked the virus to microcephaly… …sometimes there is debilitating brain damage. But recently new congenital problems have also been added… Hearing loss, vision defects, impaired growth and abnormalities in infants’ leg and arm joints.... Although some malformations are visible on ultrasounds many issues may not be apparent until birth. …such problems can occur regardless of what trimester a mother is in when she encounters Zika.



04-01-2016 National Zika Summit Focused on Coordinated U.S. Response: Officials from most-at-risk states in Atlanta to develop action plans for implementation following Summit. (CDC press release) ATLANTA -- Today, more than 300 local, state, and federal government officials; health experts; and non-government partners are gathering at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to prepare for the likelihood of mosquito-borne transmission of the Zika virus in some parts of the continental United States. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa already are experiencing active Zika transmission.



03-31-2016 Zika virus structure revealed, a critical advance in the development of treatments. (Science Daily) Researchers have now determined the structure of the Zika virus, a critical advance in the development of vaccines and treatments. The team also identified regions within the Zika virus structure where it differs from other flaviviruses and identified a potential target for antiviral treatments…. The team studied a strain of Zika virus isolated from a patient infected during the French Polynesia epidemic and determined the structure to 3.8Å. (See Sirohi D et al., 2016)



03-24-2016 WHO: Yellow fever outbreak kills 178 in Angola. (AP) JOHANNESBURG — The World Health Organization says the first yellow fever outbreak in Angola in decades has killed 178 people. The organization said Thursday that more than 450 people have been infected by the disease since the outbreak was first reported in December last year. It has been described as the first outbreak in 30 years and spread from the capital Luanda to six of the country's 18 provinces. The WHO statement said that while 5.7 million people have been vaccinated against yellow fever, there is a global vaccine shortage. Half of the severely infected patients die within 10 to 14 days if they do not receive treatment. Yellow fever is spread by mosquitoes, most commonly the Aedes aegypt mosquito, the same species that spreads the Zika virus.



03-24-2016 Study: Zika landed in Brazil 2 years before it was detected. (Mike Stobbe, AP) New York — The worrisome Zika virus apparently has been in Brazil at least a year longer than experts previously thought, according to new research. Some experts have speculated the virus first came to the Americas sometime in 2014. But the new study — led by Brazilian researchers — concludes Zika landed in Brazil a year earlier. The researchers coupled cuttitting-edge genetic sequencing of the virus with an analysis of human travel patterns. They succeeded in piecing to gether "a very compelling story about both the route and the date of introduction of this virus into the Americas," said Dr. Ian Lipkin, a prominent infectious disease specialist at New York's Columbia University….



03-23-2016 Congress just went on spring break without voting on emergency Zika measure. (David Nather, STAT) WASHINGTON — Lawmakers left town Wednesday for their spring recess without voting on an emergency funding request for the Zika virus, as the Obama administration and congressional Republicans failed to resolve their disagreement over whether federal health agencies need more money to support research and preparedness.



03-23-2016 Microcephaly Could Affect More Than 2,500 Infants in Brazil. (Laura Geggel, LiveScience) More than 2,500 babies could be diagnosed with microcephaly in Brazil if current trends within the Zika-affected country continue, the World Health Organization (WHO) told reporters today at a news conference in Geneva…. So far, about 39 percent of all infants suspected of having microcephaly in Brazil wound up being confirmed to have the condition…



03-23-2016 Haiti in Grave Danger of Being Overrun by Zika Epidemic, Catholic Mission Warns (Rose Gamble, The Tablet) The degree of stagnant water and poor living conditions are a breeding ground for mosquitoes carrying virus. Haiti in grave danger of being overrun by Zika epidemic, Catholic Mission warns. Impoverished Haiti could be Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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subject to the rapid spread of the Zika virus, warn American charities and the US Centre for Disease Control.



03-22-2016 In Uganda's Zika Forest, global health scare seems a world away. (Elias Biryabarema, Reuters) ZIKA FOREST, Uganda (Reuters) - In a tiny patch of tall trees and tangled undergrowth near the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda, Zika-carrying mosquitoes buzz around local people who are unperturbed by the global health emergency that the virus has triggered. "Zika? That one I have never heard about - what kind of disease is that?" said Julius Makumbi, 38, a motorbike taxi rider who lives near the forest. His nonchalance is understandable. This may be the birthplace of Zika - the virus took its name from the forest after being found here nearly 70 years ago - but there is no record of it causing health problems in the area. Julius Lutwama, a Ugandan virologist who has researched mosquito-borne viruses, including Zika, for 31 years, believes Zika is unlikely to be a threat here because Africans appear to have resistance. "There may be some kind of immunity," Lutwama told Reuters in an interview, although he added there have never been any tests to ascertain that. "We have so many diseases which are related to Zika, they may confer some kind of immunity to the African body,"



03-22-2016 Concerns grow over care of patients with serious Zika complications. (Lisa Schnirring, CIDRAP News) As the evidence linking maternal Zika virus infections with microcephaly and other birth defects continues to grow —along with the number of countries and territories reporting cases—a shift in focus is needed away from individual cases and toward building health system capacities to care for affected patients and families…



03-21-2016 U.S. Senate Passes Incentive For Zika Vaccine. (Abe Aboraya, WGCU News) The U.S. Senate has passed a bill encouraging companies to develop a Zika vaccine. Companies that develop a Zika vaccine would get fast-track FDA approval of their next venture in the future. That would be done through a voucher program. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson said the vouchers have sold for $125 million dollars.



03-20-2016 This lab is ground zero in the U.S. fight against Zika. (Lena H. Sun, WaPo) SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — As the Zika virus speeds through the hemisphere, a cluster of one-story buildings set in the shade of banyan and mango trees has become the epicenter of the U.S. fight against the pathogen. Behind an unmarked gated entrance in this working-class neighborhood of San Juan, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have only one focus: to stop Zika's spread. About 100 virologists, biologists, entomologists and more are working here, including dozens brought from CDC sites in Colorado and Georgia. They're racing to develop tests for faster and more accurate diagnosis of infection and killing Aedes aegypti mosquitoes by the hundreds to determine what chemicals are most effective.



03-17-2016 Sanofi science chief says it’s time to ‘think big’ about global epidemics like Zika. (Helen Branswell, STAT) To tackle emerging diseases like the Zika virus, the global outbreak response system needs a massive overhaul, argues Sanofi's top scientist. …Dr. Gary Nabel argued that the current global outbreak response system operates with too few resources, too little organization, and inadequate accountability. Changes are needed, he said, and that’s going to require input from government, industry, funders, and public health agencies. Echoing concerns raised an editorial co-penned with Sanofi’s global R&D head Dr. Elias Zerhouni and published this week in Science Translational Medicine, Nabel — who previously led the government’s Vaccine Research Center — talked about whether the Zika response is doomed to follow in the footsteps of the stumbling efforts to contain SARS, Ebola, and other recent dangerous disease outbreaks.



03-17-2016 Potential Zika Virus Risk Estimated for 50 U.S. Cities. (National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR) Key factors that can combine to produce a Zika virus outbreak are expected to be present in a number of U.S. cities during peak summer months, new research shows. … By analyzing travel patterns from countries and territories with Zika outbreaks, the research team further concluded that cities in southern Florida and impoverished areas in southern Texas may be particularly vulnerable to local virus transmission. (See Monaghan et al. 2016 and map below).



03-17-2016 Zika Fears Cause Bug Spray Demand to Surge. (Michal Addady, Fortune) Factories are operating nearly 24/7….Mosquito season has barely begun in the U.S., and repellant producers are already selling more than ever. According to the Wall Street Journal, various bug spray products saw sales increase by 100% to 200% in February and Spectrum Brands Holdings, maker of Cutter and Repel, has been shipping to retailers 3x more than it normally Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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would at this time of year.



03-16-2016 Volunteering for infection in hunt for dengue, Zika vaccines. (Lauran Neergaard, AP) WASHINGTON — Forget mosquito bites. Volunteers let researchers inject them with the dengue virus in the name of science — and an experimental vaccine protected them. Next up, scientists plan to use this same strategy against dengue's cousin, the Zika virus. It's called a human challenge, a little-known but increasing type of research where healthy people agree to be deliberately infected in the quest for new or improved vaccines against a variety of health threats, from flu to malaria. Wednesday's dengue study offered more evidence that what sounds bizarre not only can be done safely, it can offer important clues for how well a shot might work.



03-15-2016 Women with Zika in Tahiti had 1 percent birth defects risk. (Maria Cheng, AP) LONDON (AP) — Women who got pregnant during a Zika outbreak in Tahiti two years ago had about a 1 percent chance of having a baby with an abnormally small head, according to a new study published Tuesday. It's a surprisingly low risk that experts say might not match the threat of the epidemic now spreading explosively in the Americas…. The paper was published online Tuesday in the journal, Lancet (see Rodrigues 2016, below).



03-15-2016 Infrastructure inequality is catalyst for Brazil's Zika epidemic. (Brad Brooks, Reuters) RIO DE JANEIRO The mosquito, a Brazilian saying goes, is a democratic devil - it bites rich and poor alike. But an outbreak of the Zika virus has revealed deep inequality when it comes to who bears the brunt of living among the insects. "You can see the swarms of mosquitoes around the trash heaps here in my neighborhood," said Gleyse da Silva, who lives in one of the poorest parts of Brazil's northeastern city of Recife, at the epicenter of the Zika outbreak.



03-15-2016 Racing Zika: For Every Short Cut, There’s An Open Question. Racing Zika: For Every Short Cut, There’s An Open Question. (Alex Lash, Xconomy National) [General coverage of Zika disease and the epidemic, describes mAb work by Adimab, vaccine work by Sanofi, PaxVax, explains the theory that a history of dengue and Zika together cause greater pathology, and other topics.]



03-15-2016 Congress Should Allocate Money to Fight Zika. (New York Times Editorial Board) [Editorial] 03-10-2016 Zika outbreak: ‘The more we learn, the worse things seem to get’ (Lena H. Sun, Washington Post) The top U.S. health officials leading the response to the mosquito-borne Zika virus sweeping through the hemisphere said its growing links to a broad array of birth defects and neurological disorders are worse than they originally suspected, increasing the risk for devastating harm during pregnancy. Until Zika, "there has never been a mosquito-borne virus that could cause serious birth defects on such a large scale," Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday during a conference call with reporters. Frieden and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, used Thursday's briefing to plead for urgently needed funds from Congress to battle Zika. ...Puerto Rico is a Zika target that has Frieden "very concerned." The CDC director, who just returned from a trip to the island, said he expects hundreds of thousands of people there will be infected by year's end, including thousands of pregnant women. The U.S. territory is on the "front lines of the battle," he said. At some point, Zika cases there will increase "not steadily but dramatically," he said. (See also: Carteaux, 2016 below)



03-10-2016 Nearly half of Americans mistakenly think Zika is fatal: New survey reveals misconceptions about virus spreading in South and Central America. (Beth Mole, ARS Technica) In a recent phone survey, 42 percent of Americans reported thinking that people infected with the Zika virus were likely to die from the infection. The survey, conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC), of the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that despite massive news coverage of the ongoing outbreaks, critical information about the virus is not being clearly conveyed.



03-10-2016 Zika crisis may give rise to investment scams. (James Langton, IE -Investment Executive) The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Office of Investor Education and Advocacy issued an investor alert on Wednesday warning investors about potential investment scams involving companies that claim to be in the business of dealing with the Zika virus.



03-04-2016 White House and states to craft Zika attack plan at summit. (Roberta Rampton, Reuters) Washington ...The White House is inviting officials involved in mosquito control and public health to an April 1 summit at the AtZika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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lanta headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to talk about how best to track and control the spread of the virus, and respond when people are affected. Pathology and Animal Models



07-24-2016 Brazil asks whether Zika acts alone to cause birth defects. Puzzling distribution of cases suggests Zika is not the only factor in reported microcephaly surge. (Declan Butler, Nature News) Researchers at Brazil’s ministry of health have launched a study to explore why the country has a peculiar distribution of Zika-linked microcephaly cases — babies born with abnormally small heads. Zika virus has spread throughout Brazil, but extremely high rates of microcephaly have been reported only in the country's northeast. Although evidence suggests that Zika can cause microcephaly, the clustering pattern hints that other environmental, socio-economic or biological factors could be at play…. [See De Goes Cavalcanti, L. P. et al. 2016 and Nogueira, F. C. S., Velasquez, E., Melo, A. S. O. & Domont, G. B. Preprint 2016].



07-14-2016 The CDC wants your semen (if you've had Zika). (Elizabeth Cohen, CNN) The CDC is collecting semen from hundreds of men in the United States in order to figure out how long the dreaded Zika virus lasts in the bodily fluid. After about two months of recruiting, some 40 men who've had Zika have volunteered to donate their semen. The CDC hopes to bring in about 210 more.



07-06-2016 One Zika twin has microcephaly; the other doesn't. But why? (Nick Paton Walsh and Brent Swails, CNN) Santos, Brazil (CNN)Jacqueline Silva de Oliveira sits on the edge of her bed, holding her 6-month-old son, Lucas. He squirms in her arms before he finally screams out, hungry and demanding milk. His twin sister, Laura, barely notices, just a slight nod and a twitch of her eyes. Half his size, she is quiet, asleep on the other end of the bed, as she often is. When she wakes, even her cries seem to struggle from her throat. She can't breastfeed. She can barely hold up her small head. She has microcephaly. ...It was only three months after she gave birth that de Oliveira found out that she'd had that Zika virus while pregnant. Her husband had Zika before her, with strong symptoms, and eventually she developed a rash. "I thought it was allergies," she said. "And it only lasted a day, so I didn't even get tested or anything." ...Lucas and Laura are one of six sets of twins in Brazil whom researchers are studying to see why one has microcephaly and the other does not.



06-28-2016 Monkey study finds Zika infection lasts longer in pregnancy. (Lauran Neergaard, AP) WASHINGTON — Researchers infected pregnant monkeys with the Zika virus to learn how it harms developing fetuses — and in a highly unusual twist, the public can get a real-time peek at the findings. Among the first surprising results: While most people harbor Zika in their bloodstream for only a week or so after infection, the virus lingered in one pregnant monkey’s blood for 70 days and in another for 30 days. A bit of good news: Tests with non-pregnant monkeys suggest one infection with Zika protects against a second bout later on. Rhesus macaque monkeys make a good model for studying how Zika infects people, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison concluded Tuesday in Nature Communications. But what’s novel is that the team is posting its raw data online right away — even ultrasound images of developing monkeys that they acknowledged at the time “can elicit stronger emotions than looking at relatively sterile charts” — so that normally competing research labs can work together to speed discoveries. [See Dudley, D. M. et al.]



06-24-2016 List of Possible Zika Birth Defects Grows Longer. (Dina Fine Maron, Scientific American) Even without microcephaly, seizures and developmental delays may appear in the months following birth. The full scope of Zikarelated birth defects may extend far beyond abnormally small heads and brain damage. Research to be presented next week at a teratology conference in San Antonio, Texas, suggests that serious joint problems, seizures, vision impairment, trouble feeding and persistent crying can be added to the list of risks from Zika exposure in the womb. The new findings confirm doctors’ concerns that even when Zika-exposed babies are born without microcephaly and appear largely normal at birth they can go on to have health issues including seizures and developmental delays that only become apparent in the weeks and months after birth….



06-23-2016 A Surprising Link Between Zika and Dengue. (Adrienne Lafrance, Atlantic) New research finds some dengue fever antibodies can help neutralize Zika—but they can also make Zika infections worse [Antibody-depenZika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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dent enhancement]. Before Zika spurred a global health emergency, the mosquito best known for transmitting the virus was most notorious for spreading several other dangerous diseases—including dengue fever, chikungunya, and yellow fever. But there’s more to how these viruses are related to one another than just the bug that carries them. New research shows that certain dengue antibodies can either neutralize Zika—or help it replicate. The findings, published in two separate papers on Thursday, may be a crucial step toward developing a vaccine for Zika….But these findings also present a spate of new challenges for such efforts. Because a Zika vaccine, if developed, would need to be used in areas where dengue infections are common, researchers must now consider the antibodies produced in someone who contracts either virus. [See Dejnirattisai W, et al. and Barba-Spaeth G, et al.]



06-21-2016 Itchy inflammation of mosquito bites helps viruses replicate. (University of Leeds) University of Leeds study has found that inflammation where a mosquito has bitten not only helps a virus such as Zika or dengue establish an infection in the body more quickly, but that it also helps it to spread around the body, increasing the likelihood of severe illness. …."We now want to look at whether medications such as anti-inflammatory creams can stop the virus establishing an infection if used quickly enough after the bite inflammation appears." [See Pingen et al. 2016] Figure 4: Inflammation at bite sites aids viral replication and dissemination in vivo, resulting in more severe infection (Pingen et al. 2016).





06-15-2016 Zika can cause microcephaly even if moms have no symptoms, report says. (Lena H. Sun, Washington Post) Pregnant women who become infected with the Zika virus are at risk of having babies with the severe birth defect known as microcephaly, regardless of whether they have symptoms of the disease, according to a new report. The findings, part of the first comprehensive look at the Zika outbreak in Colombia... in the New England Journal of Medicine said nearly 66,000 people, including nearly 12,000 pregnant women.... But the report did offer a glimmer of reassuring news. Researchers found that among a small group of Zika-infected women, a majority of those infected in the third trimester delivered healthy babies with no apparent abnormalities. A majority of the women who contracted Zika in the first or second trimester were still pregnant at the time of the report in early April. Other research has found that pregnant women infected with the Zika virus during their first trimester face as high as a 13 percent chance that their fetus will develop microcephaly. [See Pacheco, OC et al., 2016] 06-15-2016 How Autism Research and Mini-Brains Helped Prove Zika Causes Microcephaly. (Jessica Wright, SpecZika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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trum) The mini-brains one researcher had built turned out to be the perfect model for proving causation. On the face of it, the Zika virus has little to do with autism. But for one autism researcher, Zika’s effect on fetal development and the brain hits close to home. Alysson Muotri, a native Brazilian, had been following the news about Zika in his home country closely. He realized he could use techniques he had honed to study autism to better understand this public health threat…. 06-05-2016 Zika virus directly infects brain cells and evades immune system detection, study shows. (UT Southwestern Medical Center) The mosquito-borne Zika virus linked to microcephaly and other neurological problems in newborns of affected mothers directly infects the brain progenitor cells destined to become neurons, researchers report in a new study. ...UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report in a study published online in Cell Reports...found that the virus infects about 20 percent of cells on average, evades immune system detection, and continues to replicate for weeks. [See Hanners et al., ] 05-03-2016 UMMS scientists offer first look at how our cells can ‘swallow up and quarantine’ Zika. (Jim Fessenden, UMass Medical School Communications) Research shows that the human protein IFITM3 blocks Zika virus replication and prevents cell death. ...scientists at UMass Medical School have shown that a very small protein ...interferon-induced protein 3 (IFITM3)—can dramatically reduce the ability of Zika virus to infect human and mouse cells. In some cases, IFITM3 can also prevent Zika virus from killing our cells. The findings...suggest that boosting the actions of IFITM3 may be useful for inhibiting Zika virus and other emerging viral infections. …Previous studies ...have shown that people who have a genetic variant, or allele, of the IFITM3 gene are more susceptible to the development of severe influenza. While relatively rare in people of European decent, this IFITM3 variant is more common in Asia and Micronesia. 05-27-2016 Researchers discover how Zika infects the placenta. (Quinn Eastman, Emory News Center) Zika virus can infect and replicate in immune cells from the placenta, without killing them, scientists have discovered. The finding may explain how the virus can pass through the placenta of a pregnant woman, on its way to infect developing brain cells in her fetus. ..."It was known that the virus was getting into the placenta. But little was known about where the virus was replicating and in what cell type." ... Zika virus could infect placental macrophages, called Hofbauer cells, in cell culture. The virus could also infect another type of placental cell, called cytotrophoblasts, but only after a couple days delay and not as readily. Other researchers recently reported that syncytiotrophoblasts, a more differentiated type of placental cell than cytotrophoblasts, are resistant to Zika infection. The cells for the experiments were derived from full-term placentae, obtained from healthy volunteers .... The level of viral replication varied markedly from donor to donor, which hints that some women’s placentae may be more susceptible to viral infection than others. [See Quicke KM et al. ]



05-25-2016 For Zika-infected pregnancies, microcephaly risk may be as high as 13 percent. (Lena H. Sun, Washington Post) Pregnant women infected with the Zika virus during their first trimester face as high as a 13 percent chance that their fetus will develop a severe and rare brain defect, according to research published Wednesday. That condition, known as microcephaly, is characterized at birth by an abnormally small head and often incomplete brain development. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health identified the sharply higher risk after analyzing data from one of the hardest hit areas in Brazil, the epicenter of the rapidly evolving Zika outbreak. Typically, microcephaly occurs in .02 percent to .12 percent of all U.S. births. The prevalence of even more common congenital conditions, such as Down syndrome, is often less than 1 percent…. [See Johansson, MA et al., 2016]



05-25-2016 Zika virus may be linked to more eye problems in Brazilian babies with microcephaly. (Medical Xpress) Researchers studying babies with a Zika virus-related birth defect say they have found previously unreported eye problems possibly linked to the virus that could result in severe visual impairment. ...researchers observed retinal lesions, hemorrhaging and abnormal blood vessel development not noted before in relation to the virus. The findings are being published online today in Ophthalmology, journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. ...researchers identified several types of ocular issues not previously observed in relation to Zika virus, some of which could cause visual impairment if untreated. These included: Hemorrhagic retinopathy… Abnormal vasculature in the retina, including signs of missing blood vessels in the retina… and Torpedo maculopathy, identiZika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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fied by torpedo-shaped lesions in the macula…. [See Homero Augusto de Miranda et al, 2016.] 05-16-2016 Animals show how Zika harms fetuses. (J. Cohen J., Science) Three new papers published online this week describe different mouse models that infected pregnant dams with the virus, or, in one case, placed viral injections directly into the fetal brain. The studies all confirm that Zika virus harms the growth of the fetus, examining how the virus damages both placental cells and critical neural cells in the fetal brain. Two of the studies demonstrate, for the first time in an animal model, that Zika virus can cause microcephaly. Studies are also underway with Zika virus in pregnant monkeys, a model that much more closely resembles human pregnancy, and the community of primate researchers is going to unusual lengths to share their data openly in near real time….” References: • Miner et al., Zika Virus Infection during Pregnancy in Mice Causes Placental Damage and Fetal Demise, Cell (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2016.05.008. • Miner JJ, Diamond MS. Understanding How Zika Virus Enters and Infects Neural Target Cells. Cell Stem Cell. 2016 May 5;18(5):559-60. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2016.04.009. PubMed PMID: 27152436. • Cugola FR et al. The Brazilian Zika virus strain causes birth defects in experimental models. Nature (2016) doi:10.1038/nature18296. See also: Zika Shown to Penetrate the Placenta, Strengthening Its Link to Birth Defects (05-16-2016, Scientfic American) 05-13-2016 UTMB scientists genetically engineered world’s first Zika virus infectious cDNA clone. (UTMB, Galveston) The Zika virus infectious clone is key to rapid vaccine development and unraveling the mysteries of why the Zika virus causes the recent explosive epidemics and birth defects and disease. GALVESTON, Texas – A multidisciplinary team from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston is the first in the world to genetically engineer a[n infectious cDNA] clone of the Zika virus strain, a development that could expedite many aspects of Zika research, including vaccine and therapeutics development. (See Shan C. et al., 2016) 05-09-2016 Zika Mouse Model Using Current Strain Enhances Quest for New Vaccines and Treatments. IITRI is on the leading edge for testing new Zika vaccines and antivirals. CHICAGO /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- IIT Research Institute (IITRI) scientists have developed a novel mouse model for Zika infections using the current viral strain responsible for outbreaks in Central and South America, and more than 1000 locally-acquired and imported cases in the U.S. and territories. The Zika mouse model is urgently needed to rapidly test new drugs and vaccines against the same strain associated with microcephaly in newborns. IITRI is one of the first labs in the country to have acquired the PRV ABC59 strain, an isolate of Zika virus from the current outbreak. According to Robert Baker, PhD, Manager of the Microbiology and Molecular Biology Division at IITRI, it's essential to use the current strain to evaluate new treatments against the Zika virus. "Most labs are working with old isolates—as old as 1947 in fact. As you know, viruses and other organisms change over time, and those older isolates have never been associated with microcephaly. The mouse model is available for immediate use to evaluate new drugs or vaccine candidates.” Details: “...IFNr-KO mice, fully competent in their humoral immune response were innoculated with the PRV ABC59 Zika strain and were observed for signs of infection. The mice demonstrated symptoms of acute viral disease and lethal infection….” [See Figure 5 below] Link for more information

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Figure 5: TTRI Lethal mouse model for Zika virus.







03-28-2016 From mice to monkeys, animal models hold the key to battling Zika. (Andrew Joseph, Stat News) With global health officials warning that millions of people in the Americas could contract Zika infections this year, the virus might not seem like a choosy pathogen. But one group that’s eluded the virus: lab mice. That’s a problem because scientists need to study Zika in animals to learn more about the poorly understood disease and discover possible treatments and vaccines. But on Monday, a group from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston reported a break: a genetically altered mouse capable of contracting the virus that scientists from academia and biopharma companies can now use to screen potential Zika therapies. “It’s a good initial model to test the effects of antivirals and any vaccine,” said UTMB infectious disease researcher Nikos Vasilakis, a coauthor of the study published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. (link to press release) 03-28-2016 New mouse model for Zika virus to enable immediate screening of potential drugs and vaccines: Research in American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene describes first new Zika animal model in decades. (Press Release) Oakbrook Terrace, Ill. -- Efforts to combat the rapid spread of Zika virus got a boost this week as researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston (UTMB) announced the first peer-reviewed publication of a mouse model for Zika infection reported in decades. Several research institutions and companies have vaccine and drug candidates nearly ready to test, but until now a mouse model - a critical stage in preclinical testing has not been available. The study, published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (AJTMH), removes a bottleneck that was delaying treatment screening. 03-11-2016 Zika Virus Implicated In Brain Infection In Adults: Study. (AFP) PARIS, FRANCE: The Zika virus, already linked to brain damage in babies, can also cause a serious brain infection in adult victims, French researchers warned Thursday. The Zika virus was found in the spinal fluid of an 81-year-old man who was admitted in January to a hospital near Paris shortly after returning from a month-long cruise. The man -- semi-comatose, with a high fever and partial paralysis – was diagnosed with meningoencephalitis, an inflammation of the brain and its membrane, the team wrote in New England Journal of Medicine. "It is the first case of its kind to be reported, to our knowledge..." The mere presence of the virus does not prove it is what caused the disease. But Carteaux said that "other infectious causes, either viral or bacterial, have been ruled out" in this case. The patient, who was reported to have been in good health during his cruise around New Caledonia, Vanuato, the Solomon Islands and New Zealand, has since partially recovered. "Clinicians should be aware that (Zika virus) may be associated with meningoencephalitis," the team wrote. On Wednesday, a different French team linked the virus sweeping Latin America and the Caribbean to paralysis-causing myelitis...

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03-04-2016 Two Studies Strengthen Links Between the Zika Virus and Serious Birth Defects. (Donald G. Mcneil Jr. and Catherine Saint Louis, New York Times) The Zika virus damages many fetuses carried by infected and symptomatic mothers, regardless of when in pregnancy the infection occurs, according to a small but frightening study released on Friday by Brazilian and American researchers (See Brasil et al. 2016). In a separate report other scientists suggested a mechanism for the damage, showing in laboratory experiments that the virus targets and destroys fetal cells that eventually form the brain’s cortex (See Tang et al. 2016, below). The reports are far from conclusive, but the studies help shed light on a mysterious epidemic. ... 29 percent of women who had ultrasound examinations after testing positive for infection with the Zika virus had fetuses that suffered “grave outcomes.” They included fetal death, tiny heads, shrunken placentas and nerve damage that suggested blindness. Two fetuses died even though the mothers were infected relatively late in pregnancy, at 25 and 32 weeks — and even after earlier ultrasounds had shown the fetuses to be normal. 03-01-2016 Zika's link to Guillain-Barre syndrome revealed. (Melissa Healy, LA Times) A study published Monday in the journal Lancet has found substantial evidence that Zika virus infection and Guillain-Barre syndrome are causally linked. The study has also put public health authorities on notice that, as the Zika virus tears across the Americas infecting millions with no immunity, it is likely to claim adult lives and strain hospitals caring for the unlucky few who develop this post-infection complication. During the Zika outbreak in French Polynesia, scientists estimate that 24 additional cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome would occur for every 100,000 people newly infected with Zika virus. [The rate is historically 1-2 per 100,000.] Vaccine R&D







07-27-2016 Governments back Prokarium for Zika and bioterrorism vaccines. (The PharmaLetter) UK biotech Prokarium has received funding worth £2 million ($2.63 million) from the UK and Mexican governments for its work in developing vaccines against the Zika virus, bacterial diarrhea and plague…. This project will also serve as a clinical proof-of-concept for Prokarium’s Vaxonella platform [attenuated Salmonella enterica], which promises to speed up the development of oral, thermostable vaccines in general…. 07-26-2016 Scientists unveil structure of Zika NS1 protein. (Univ. Michigan Press Release) Researchers have revealed the molecular structure of a protein produced by the Zika virus that is thought to be involved in the virus's reproduction and its interaction with a host's immune system. The study was led by the University of Michigan and done in collaboration with Purdue University. ….The findings are scheduled for online publication July 25 in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. Earlier this year, scientists in China published a partial structure. ..."Despite its similarity to other related viruses, we found the Zika NS1 structure had a few important differences," said W. Clay Brown, scientific director of the Center for Structural Biology.... The new 3-D structure, which was obtained using X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy, revealed that the outer surface of the Zika NS1 protein has substantially different electrical-charge properties than those of other flaviviruses—indicating it may interact differently with the members of an infected person's immune system. This study was also the first to capture the molecular structure of flexible loops on the wing domains of the protein... "From NS1 structure studies in dengue, it was thought this loop flipped up, but our study in Zika virus shows it flips down from the wings," said co-author Richard Kuhn.... "This is very important because it indicates an interaction with the cellular membrane of the host and a possible mechanism by which NS1 carries out its multiple functions. ...The NS1 (nonstructural protein 1) protein plays several roles in viral infections. Inside infected cells, it is essential to making new copies of the virus to infect additional cells. Infected cells also secrete NS1 packets into the patient's blood stream, where higher levels have been associated with more severe illness. The cross-shaped protein has two distinct surfaces. The inner surface is "greasy" and is believed to interact with cell membranes, while the outer surface, once secreted into the blood, can interact with the patient's immune system. Even without the virus present, the secreted version of some NS1 proteins can create vascular bleeding, such as is seen in severe dengue infections…. [See Brown WC et al. 2016] 07-23-2016 Jamaica part of worldwide trials for Zika vaccine. (Jamaica Observor) KINGSTON, Jamaica – Jamaica is to participate in a number of clinical trials in the drive to find a vaccine to treat the mosquito-borne Zika Virus Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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(ZIKV), Health Minister, Dr. Christopher Tufton has said. He said that the island’s participation forms part of an international study and fight against ZIKV and are being supported by the World Health Organizaton (WHO).… 07-21-2016 Meriden company works towards development of a Zika vaccine. (Jim Altman, Fox61) MERIDEN -Protein Sciences, a company that already has an FDA approved vaccine for the flu, is now putting the Zika virus under the microscope and working towards a vaccination. The first phase of the Meriden-based company's Zika trials was recently completed, and CEO and president of Protein Sciences Manon Cox says they are employing the same technology that their vaccine called "Flublok" uses to unlock the riddles of Zika. "We make vaccines with what you could describe as 'plug and play' technology," she said. "So instead of inserting the antigen that would protect you against flu, we now insert a protective antigen that would protect you against Zika." Cox estimates that getting FDA approval could take two years or more and cost upwards of $100 million, so government aid and grant money will be crucial to continued development of a Zika vaccine. "We are working with public health organizations to identify whether there is other funding to take this product to the next level." 06-23-2016 Codagenix. “We have developed a deoptimized Zika strain and are currently testing our vaccine; will announce results in July.” [See also: Move complete, Codagenix takes aim at Zika (Innovate Long Island, 03-142016).



07-13-2016 Zika meets its match. (Alex K. Shalek, Science Translational Medicine) ...Discovering a vaccine for those at risk—especially in the Americas, the current epicenter of the epidemic—is of the utmost importance. Now, Larocca and colleagues have taken a major step toward this goal by describing a vaccine that protects mice from certain strains of Zika. Turning to strategies previously deployed against other flaviviruses, the authors generated a series of plasmid DNA vaccines expressing either full-length Zika premembrane and envelope (prMEnv) or several partial deletions. Immunization of Balb/c mice with all variants resulted in substantial antibody titers against Zika envelope protein, although only the full prM-Env plasmid vaccine, which yielded the highest antibody levels in blood, completely protected against challenges with Brazilian and Puerto Rican viral strains. Full immunity to both challenges was also observed in C57BL/6 mice, but only to the Brazilian strain in SJL mice. Antibody titer was a strong predictor of efficacy, and in fact giving vaccine-naïve mice IgG antibodies isolated from immunized mice was sufficient to block Zika infection. In support of antibody-mediated prophylaxis, depletion of CD4+ and/or CD8+ T cells had no effect on protection. Additionally, the authors confirmed that a purified inactivated virus vaccine was also effective, although more so if delivered intramuscularly versus subcutaneously. Overall, these preclinical data suggest exciting possibilities for a long-awaited Zika vaccine, especially for pregnant women, given clinical precedent for the relative safety of plasmid DNA and inactivated virus vaccines. [See R. A. Larocca et al., Vaccine protection against Zika virus from Brazil. Nature (2016)]



07-12-2016 Austrian biotech plans Zika vaccine clinical trials in 12 months. (Reuters) An Austrian biotech company working with the Institut Pasteur said on Tuesday it planned to start clinical trials with an experimental Zika vaccine in the next 12 months, marking a further acceleration of research in the field. Themis Bioscience has signed a license deal with the French research institute giving it extensive rights to the Zika vaccine candidate, which is based on established measles vaccine technology. ..Erich Tauber, chief executive of Themis, believes his company's project will benefit from the proven track record behind the technology used to immunize against measles.



07-11-2016 Zika Virus Gene Replikins: Significant Mutations Detected. Surveillance Service and Delivery in 7-Days of New Commensurate 'Made to Measure' Vaccine-Blocker Candidates. TORONTO, July 11, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -Replikins Ltd. announced today that recent rapid significant Zika virus gene mutations have been detected and quantified by Replikins Surveillance™ software. The data predicts Zika intensification and spread of outbreaks in the coming year.



07-07-2016 GSK jumps into Zika vax hunt on heels of Sanofi's deal. (Eric Sagonowsky, FiercePharma) After months of work under the radar, GlaxoSmithKline committed to entering the Zika R&D field, announcing on Thursday that it’s pairing with the National Institutes of Health in a project based at its new vaccine research hub in Rockville, MD. ...Over the past few months, GSK has run feasibility studies and now says it’s ready to move forward with technology called self-amplifying mRNA, dubbed SAM. ..“We will partner with research groups at the NIH to Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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explore this concept in laboratory-based studies and, if this goes well, to accelerate our ability to transition this technology to a stage where a clinical proof of concept can be achieved.” ...Sanofi this week announced a partnership with the U.S. Army’s Walter Reed Army Institute of Research to advance an inactivated Zika virus vaccine candidate. In that collaboration, Sanofi is preparing for Phase II trials, while the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases sponsors a Phase I study. Sanofi is also working on its own candidate separately, hoping to leverage decades of experience in dengue vaccine research. ...GSK’s announcement follows a May report that said many Big Pharma companies were cautious about entering Zika vaccine R&D because populations might develop a natural immunity to the virus, slowing its spread and shrinking the market for a potential vaccine. The pharma's Zika effort will be based at GSK’s new Rockville, MD, vaccines R&D hub, which GSK has touted as an ideal location for collaborations with vaccines experts and public health officials.



07-06-2016 Sanofi Teams Up With U.S. Army on Zika Vaccine. Partnership to expand research, development of promising experimental immunization. (BETSY MCKAY and NOEMIE BISSERBE, Wall Street Journal) Sanofi SA has formed a partnership with the U.S. Army to expand research and development of an experimental Zika vaccine that has shown promise in early laboratory studies and is among a few candidates expected to be tested on humans in the coming months. .…The experimental vaccine developed by scientists at [WRAIR], and now to be advanced by Sanofi, is one of the furthest along. Made from a whole virus that has been killed, or inactivated, it is based on a technology that has been used on vaccines that have been licensed against viruses related to Zika, such as Japanese encephalitis, said Col. Stephen Thomas, the institute’s Zika program lead. ...The experimental Zika vaccine will be tested...in a Phase I clinical trial starting in October that will be funded by the U.S. government, said Col. Nelson Michael, co-lead of the institute’s Zika program. A single dose of the vaccine ...protected mice in a study published last week in the journal Nature.... The experimental vaccine developed by the Army institute is the second that Sanofi is pursuing for Zika...also conducting preclinical studies on a vaccine that is based on a technology it used to develop treatments against dengue and Japanese encephalitis. But that vaccine will take longer to develop and get to market…. Under the agreement, the Army will transfer its technology for the vaccine candidate to Sanofi Pasteur, which will take on advanced clinical development, develop a manufacturing process, and handle other matters related to testing, regulatory approval, and production…



07-05-2016 UT Zika research leading global efforts. (UT Southwestern Medical Center) ...Latin American countries most affected by the mosquito–borne disease are employing the expertise of researchers at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston to fight the deadly epidemic.... [Goes on to describe projects on various UT campuses.] 06-29-2016 Vaccine against Zika virus tested successfully in mice. (EurekaAltert) Brazilian and US researchers have developed a vaccine that totally prevents viral replication in mice, according to an article published in Nature. An experimental vaccine against Zika virus developed by Brazilian and US researchers has been tested successfully in trials with mice. The results...suggest a vaccine can be produced for humans in the near future. ...The vaccinated animals were challenged both with a strain of the virus originating in Puerto Rico and with a Brazilian strain, isolated from a baby born in Paraíba State and used in previous research by Rede Zika…. [See Larocca RA et al. and the following]



06-28-2016 New preclinical study indicates vaccine to prevent Zika infection in humans is feasible. (Science Daily) Army scientists are moving quickly to test vaccine candidate. The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) and collaborators at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School have completed a promising preclinical study of two Zika vaccine candidates that suggests that an effective human vaccine will be achievable. Findings from the study were published today in the journal Nature. In the preclinical study, WRAIR and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center tested two Zika virus vaccine candidates: a DNA vaccine developed at Harvard based on a Zika virus strain isolated in Brazil, and a purified inactivated virus vaccine developed at WRAIR based on a Zika virus strain isolated in Puerto Rico. The study showed that single shots of either vaccine candidate protected mice against subsequent Zika challenge. Both candidates were found to be safe and elicited an antibody response to Zika virus that correlated with protection. Further work with the DNA vaccine demonstrated that protection was solely due to antibodies raised by vaccination. WRAIR is moving forward with Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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the purified inactivated virus (PIV) vaccine, called ZPIV, because it builds on "a type of vaccine that has been licensed before," said Col. Stephen Thomas, an infectious disease Army physician and a vaccinologist specializing in flaviviruses, and the WRAIR Zika program lead. "It's the same technology WRAIR has used to successfully develop other flavivirus vaccines." Researchers are trying to mitigate risk by avoiding unproven technologies that could cause a licensing delay, he noted….





06-27-2016 Emergent BioSolutions wins contract to develop Zika vaccine. (Aaron Gregg, Washington Post) Emergent BioSolutions...said Monday it has been awarded a contract that could ultimately be worth $21.9 million by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to develop and manufacture an earlystage Zika vaccine. ...Emergent will provide drug development and manufacturing for an early-stage Zika vaccine — one of several in the pre-clinical stages.... The vaccine could be given a designation called the emergency use authorization.... It could reach stage-one clinical trials by early 2017. Solow said the vaccine has shown proof of concept in animal testing, putting it further along than competing pre-clinical efforts. She said the BARDA had acquired the vaccine candidate from a third party, which she declined to name…. [Also see: Zika vaccine on the horizon. (Modern Medicine)]. 06-30-2016 UMN Pharma Joins Protein Sciences' International Zika Vaccine Consortium (Press Release) USA and Japan -- Protein Sciences Corporation, manufacturer of Flublok® influenza vaccine, and UMN Pharma Inc. (Akita, Akita prefecture, Japan) announced today that UMN has signed on as the latest partner of the international Zika vaccine consortium initiated by Protein Sciences. ... The consortium, which also includes partners Sinergium Biotech (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and Mundo Sano, a private foundation with activities in Argentina, Spain and Africa, is developing a vaccine to combat the Zika virus based on Protein Sciences' proprietary technology. The partners are pooling resources to drive advancement of their vaccine candidate into the clinic as quickly as possible, which is anticipated for later this year…. 06-21-2016 GeoVax Discusses Zika Vaccine Development at American Society for Virology's 35th Annual Meeting. (Marketwired Press Release) ATLANTA, GA--GeoVax Labs, Inc. [CSO] gave an oral presentation at the American Society for Virology... Annual Meeting [today] "Development of a Zika Vaccine"....GeoVax is leveraging its Modified Vaccinia Virus Ankara (MVA) Virus-Like Particle (VLP) technology for... a Zika vaccine. GeoVax MVA-VLP vaccines express viral antigens that assemble into VLPs… [to] elicit both antibodies and T cells… GeoVax is developing two MVA-VLP vaccine candidates for Zika virus using sequences from the Asian strain that recently spread to the Americas. ...designed to express Zika pre-Membrane and Envelope (prME) proteins.... The second vaccine expresses Zika VLPs plus an additional Zika non-structural protein that is shown with other flaviviruses to induce protective antibodies as well as cellular responses against flavivirus infections….the prME constructs expressing intracellular VLPs in multi-lamellar structures...were not only present in the cells in which they were formed, but also were secreted into the cell culture supernatant. Dr. Robinson ended the presentation with plans for animal testing….



06-20-2016 Inovio Pharmaceuticals and GeneOne Life Science Receive Approval for First-in-Man Zika Vaccine Clinical Trial. (Globe Newswire Press Release) PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa. and SEOUL, South Korea, -- Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and GeneOne Life Science, Inc. today announced that they have received approval to initiate a phase I human trial to evaluate Inovio’s Zika DNA vaccine (GLS-5700).... In preclinical testing this synthetic vaccine induced robust antibody and T cell responses in small and large animal models, demonstrating the product’s potential to prevent infection from this harmful pathogen in humans. This phase I, open-label, dose-ranging study with 40 healthy subjects will evaluate the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of GLS-5700 administered intradermally with CELLECTRA®, Inovio’s proprietary DNA delivery device….



06-16-2016 Zika Vaccine Race Overlooks Need for Global Strategy to Fight Mosquito-Borne Diseases. (Mirco Junker, GlobalData) The development of a protective vaccine against the Zika virus represents only one step in providing a long-term solution to the disease, and should be viewed in the context of tackling all mosquito-borne diseases, according to research and consulting firm GlobalData. The company’s latest analysis covering the endemic states that the uncertainty around the Zika virus, which is transmitted by the Aedes aegypt species of

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mosquito, has brought Flaviviruses to the world’s attention and should be used not only to develop a vaccine specifically protecting against the Zika virus, but to formulate a global strategy against mosquito-borne diseases. 06-13-2016 GeoVax to Discuss Zika Vaccine Development Progress at American Society for Virology Meeting (Marketwired) ATLANTA, GA-- GeoVax Labs, Inc., a biotechnology company specializing in developing human vaccines, announced...its Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Harriet Robinson, will give an oral presentation..."Development of a Zika Vaccine," ... Tuesday, June 21, 2016 during the late-breaking Zika workshop at the conference. Further details... will be released immediately following her presentation.



06-09-2016 Walter Reed Scientists Test Zika Vaccine Candidate. (Cheryl Pellerin DoD News, Defense Media Activity) WASHINGTON — ...scientists at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are ...conducting preclinical research on a Zika vaccine candidate with collaborators at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and planning to start human testing before the year ends. ...“We are working on a type of vaccine that [FDA] has seen before and has licensed before... the same [cell-based] technology we used to develop the Japanese encephalitis vaccine.” ...avoiding unproven technologies that could cause a licensing delay… WRAIR is working on the vaccine in collaboration with [BADA]-- and [NIAID]. It is also exploring collaborations with pharmaceutical companies.... The vaccine will contain a killed strain ... circulating now in South America….



06-09-2016 NanoViricides to Present at the LDMicro Invitational Conference. (PRNewswire) SHELTON, Conn., -NanoViricides is actively developing topical antivirals against several different herpesvirus indications, namely, cold sores caused by HSV-1, genital ulcers caused by HSV-2, shingles caused by VZV (the chickenpox virus), and ocular herpes keratitis. ...NanoViricides is also working on developing a broad-spectrum nanoviricide to treat diseases caused by several flaviviruses. These flaviviruses include all four subtypes of dengue viruses, as well as the recent epidemic Zika virus, among others. There are no assurances that this work will lead to an effective drug in a rapid timeframe.This information comes from a WHO publication, an article by Tripp and Ross and various other sources as indicated in the links. The WHO publication also lists interest in potential Zika therapeutics, but this work is at the discovery stage, mostly for repurposed drugs.



05-24-2016 On target: University of Oklahoma researchers aim for Zika vaccine: New NIH funding fuels hunt for Zika vaccine targets. (University of Oklahoma, EurekaAlert) - ...a team of researchers at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center has become an international player in the race to find a vaccine for the Zika virus. William Hildebrand, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and immunology with the OU College of Medicine, and his team have unique experience that may prove valuable against Zika virus. It is their experience with another mosquito-borne illness, West Nile virus, that captured the notice of the National Institutes of Health. With new NIH funding, the OU team hopes to develop a vaccine to stop the Zika virus too….



05-24-2016 Local researchers race to develop Zika vaccine. (Linda Loyd, Philly.com) A small biotech company and a global vaccine maker in Southeastern Pennsylvania are among those racing to come up with a vaccine to combat the rise in the spread of the Zika virus in Brazil and other countries. ...Inovio Pharmaceuticals in Blue Bell is developing a DNA-based vaccine - using DNA sequences of the Zika virus - in a collaboration with the Wistar Institute in University City. Inovio has been working on the vaccine since late last year, and has tested it in mice and monkeys with positive results…. 05-23-2016 Behind the world's top drugmakers' approach to Zika vaccine. (Ketaki Gokhale and Cynthia Koons, Bloomberg) at if a drugmaker spent billions of dollars to create a vaccine -- only to find out humans developed natural resistance to the disease before its product is ready? That is part of the scenario GlaxoSmithKline and other pharmaceutical giants are weighing in their cautious approach to developing a Zika vaccine. Large portions of the populations in Zika-affected areas could develop immunity to the virus over the next five to 10 years, slowing its circulation into virgin areas, said Moncef Slaoui, chairman of London-based Glaxo's vaccines division. That would make it harder to determine the market for a vaccine, which could be just stockpiled for outbreaks rather than used widely during national immunization campaigns. Although fear of the virus remains high in the United States and its territories -- where almost 300 pregnant women have shown signs of possible infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- lawmakers are pushing back on funding to fight it. Glaxo, Merck & Co. and Johnson & Johnson are all moving slowly, in contrast with their reaction to Ebola two years



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ago, when the drugmakers doubled down on developing a vaccine before their efforts stalled as the outbreak in West Africa waned. "The notion is not that there is no need for a vaccine" for Zika, Slaoui said. "What's not predictable is how to use this vaccine." 05-22-2016 Zika vaccine just got one step closer to reality. Study identifies viral protein which can help create vaccine against the deadly Zika virus. A viral protein known as NS5 is a promising target for vaccines against Zika and related viruses, according to National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists and colleagues at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine. Their study suggests that altering or removing the NS5 protein from Zika virus would allow the human body's own immune defenses to attack the virus. The study found that NS5 prevents Zika virus-infected human cells from signalling immune system cells to make interferon, a powerful antiviral protein. The scientists believe it may be possible to design a vaccine against Zika virus by using a live, weakened form of the virus made by altering the NS5 protein, though this concept is still far from being applied to a product. They also have shown that NS5 mutations weaken viruses that cause West Nile, yellow fever, and tick-borne encephalitis viruses, which suggests that NS5 could be a vaccine target for those diseases as well. The study is published online in Cell Host and Microbe. [See Grant A et al.] 05-16-2016 Inovio Pharmaceuticals Zika Vaccine Produces Robust Immune Responses in Non-Human Primates: Inovio will conduct human studies later this year. (Inovio Pharmaceuticals, GlobeNewswire) PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa. -- Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that testing of its synthetic vaccine for the Zika virus induced robust antibody and T cell responses in NHP, demonstrating the product’s potential to prevent infection from this harmful pathogen. Inovio synthetically generated DNA vaccine constructs targeting multiple Zika virus antigens using its SynCon vaccine technology. These SynCon constructs were administered using Inovio's CELLECTRA® electroporation delivery technology. Two doses of the Zika DNA vaccine delivered either intramuscularly or intradermally resulted in seroconversion, or the development of detectable specific antibodies in the blood, in all vaccinated non-human primates. Researchers also observed that vaccination generated robust and broad T cell responses as analyzed by the standardized T cell ELISPOT assay. These findings are vital given the potential importance of neutralizing antibodies in preventing infection and the role T cells play in clearing infection by killing cells that harbor the virus. 05-12-2016 Tackling Zika: Q&A With PaxVax CEO Nima Farzan (BIOtechNOW) ...More than 15 companies and public-health organizations have publically stated that they are working on Zika vaccine candidates with some shooting to advance into Phase 1 studies by early next year. We recently connected with Nima Farzan, CEO of California-based PaxVax to talk about the company’s Zika vaccine candidate and some of the challenges of addressing fast-moving and unpredictable threats. Founded in 2007, privately held PaxVax is emerging as a global player in the specialty vaccine industry with a current focus on the travelers’ market. The company closed out 2015 with $105 million in new funding and is awaiting word from the FDA on its cholera vaccine, Vaxchora, which was granted a priority review action date of June 15th this year. If approved, Vaxchora will be the only vaccine against cholera available in the United States. ...Q: What technology platform are you using? Our vaccine is being built on a VLP (Virus-Like Particle) platform which we think will offer a robust and safe option with rapid immunogenicity. VLP platforms have seen solid success and safety in other indications so we wanted to build on that. VLP-based vaccines also allow for faster development because you don’t have to deal with live virus and all the complications that come with attenuation. This is not a trivial issue when you consider one of the primary target populations for the vaccine is women who are considering pregnancy. We believe that a VLP approach will allow us to develop a safer, more effective vaccine faster. (See Ichiyama, K et al., 2016) 05-05-2016 First Response to Zika Replikins Vaccine Candidates Reported: Two vaccines synthesized in seven days, Immune response in 21 days. The company performed Replikins analyses of all Zika specimens recorded on Pubmed. The analysis identified the highest gene Replikin Counts in Zika history back to 1946. The Canadian biotechnology company then synthesized its first two Zika vaccine candidates in seven days. Administration to mice produced a statistically significant immune response in 21 days at p 0.0004 in Zika Vaccine RBA, and p 0.05 in Zika Vaccine RBB (see Figure). ...The company will continue to make 'real-time' progress reports….

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Figure 6: Immunogenicity of Replikins Vaccine Candidates



05-02-2016 Pharos Biologicals Conducting Tests of a Novel Zika Vaccine. (press release) BALTIMORE, Pharos Biologicals, LLC has been awarded the exclusive worldwide licenses for a patented Lysosome-Associated Membrane Protein (LAMP) DNA vaccine technology [and] nanotechnologies to deliver the vaccines, by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The worldwide licenses are for use in the development and delivery of vaccines for influenza and flaviviruses. The initial focus of the company is on the Zika vaccine development.... The company anticipates ... Phase 1 clinical trials of its Zika vaccine candidate by autumn of 2016.



04-19-2016 Protein Sciences Corporation, Sinergium Biotech and Mundo Sano Announce Zika Vaccine Partnership. (press release) MERIDEN, Conn. and BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Protein Sciences Corporation... Sinergium Biotech ... and Mundo Sano, a private foundation...announced...a consortium that will jointly develop a Zika virus vaccine….Sinergium will pay an upfront fee to fund the development and manufacture of the vaccine being produced at Protein Sciences using Protein Sciences' proprietary technology. ...Sinergium will receive manufacturing and commercial rights to the vaccine in Argentina and other counties to be determined. The companies also said they are in active discussions with additional strategic partners… The vaccine...is based on ...recombinant variations of the E protein from the Zika virus. Similar vaccine candidates produced at Protein Sciences against West Nile Virus and Japanese Encephalitis Virus, which are close relatives of the Zika virus, have previously been shown to neutralize their respective viruses in preclinical studies.



04-13-2016 Zika, Dengue and Japanese-Encephalitis Trivalent Synthetic Replikins Vaccine-Blocker Candidate Being Tested in Animals, with July 2016 Goal to Begin Human Trials . TORONTO, April 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -Replikins, Ltd, today announced an understanding of the evolution of lethal virus gene structures in Zika and closely related Flaviviruses. This genomic understanding has led to the development of a trivalent vaccine for Zika, Dengue and Japanese Encephalitis. …by Replikins, Ltd. …now in animal testing. The goal is for human trials to begin in July 2016. The … candidate is based on the findings of Drs. Samuel and Elenore Bogoch of Boston University School of Medicine, the Foundation for Research on the Nervous System, and Replikins, Ltd.; they found conserved Replikins gene sequences shared by the three different Flaviviruses, and a suggestion of transfer of Replikins over time between the three. Of possible relevance to the occurrence of anencephaly, the concentration of one of these shared Replikins sequences was increased in Japanese Encephalitis in 2010-2011, then declined in 2012 and peaked in the Dengue virus gene in 2013, then declined in concentration in Dengue and rose in concentration in the Zika gene in 2014. At the beginning of the Zika outbreak of 2015-16, the concentration of Replikin sequences in the Zika gene were at their highest in the history of Zika sequences reported on Pubmed…. Replikins genomic disease surveillance software1 was used to analyze the concentration and evolutionary changes in the genomes of the three Flaviviruses.



04-13-2016 Immunovaccine pairs with security firm Leidos on Zika work. (Eric Sagonowsky, Fierce Vaccines) Nova Scotia's Immunovaccine has teamed with national security contractor Leidos for Zika vaccine research in an Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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approach that the pair hopes can expedite vaccine development during rapid disease outbreaks. …Leidos will handle antigen discovery with its Virtual Pharmaceutical Development Program, while Immunovaccine will formulate promising candidates in its DepoVax adjuvanting delivery platform. After the team identifies candidates, the pair will conduct animal studies in conjunction with Dr. Gary Kobinger of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory. Immunovaccine CEO Frederic Ors noted in an interview that Kobinger, a noted Ebola scientist, is "always working on emerging viruses in the world," and has animal models the team will benefit from. "This is going to be very useful when we are ready because this is going to speed up the entire process," he said. 04-04-2016 Experts share info in scramble to fight 'impressive' Zika virus. (Eric Sagonowsky, Fierce Vaccines) At the World Vaccines Congress, leaders from the FDA, BARDA, Sabin Vaccine Institute, Sanofi Pasteur and Hawaii Biotech raised key questions associated with the Zika virus and discussed the challenges in creating a vaccine. Among the questions raised, Sabin Vaccine President Dr. Peter Hotez said it's important to determine whether rates of microcephaly are 1 in 100, as past Lancet data on an outbreak in French Polynesia have shown, or 1 in 3 as Brazilian experts are now suggesting. …At the talk, Wellington Sun, director of the FDA's division of vaccines and related product applications, questioned whether people who are infected have lifelong immunity, a factor that isn't yet known, he said. On the subject of potential human challenge trials for a vaccine candidate, Sun, expressing his views and not necessarily the FDA's, said the "viability of a human challenge model is a very complex question, depending on good characterization of risk." "We're talking about giving a pathogenic organism to consenting adults in, I think, an informed consent process. There has to be some level of certainty of what kind of risk that person would be facing in order to participate in the study. That said, I think it's not simply a regulatory question," suggesting that the issue could be debated by institutional review boards. Just returned from a trip to Brazil, Sanofi Pasteur head of research Nicholas Jackson said there is "particularly disturbing" evidence that children can be born without microcephaly and then later have clinical neurological complications. The experts at the panel also questioned whether scientists have done sufficient modeling to understand the natural history of the epidemic and where it might spread next. As vaccine development progresses, Hotez, who called the virus "impressive" because of its noted challenges, said he anticipates a "big bottleneck" with regulators when it comes to testing Zika vaccines in pregnant women. "I would imagine that's about the highest bar there is in terms of a regulatory hurdle through the FDA," he said. "I just don't know how you can navigate that and negotiate it quickly."



03-30-2016 GeoVax Extends Research Collaborations on Zika Vaccine. ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwired) - GeoVax Labs, Inc., a biotechnology company developing human vaccines, announced…a Research Collaboration Agreement with the [CDC] to evaluate the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of its Zika virus vaccine. …On February 3, 2016, GeoVax announced that it had begun a program to develop a vaccine for the prevention of Zika virus infections using its novel MVA-VLP vaccine platform, and that it had entered into a collaborative relationship with researchers at the University of Georgia to speed development of the vaccine. The Agreement between GeoVax and the CDC should further broaden and accelerate the company's Zika vaccine development through access to Zika virus antibodies available at the CDC and testing of vaccine candidates by the CDC in appropriate animal models.



03-14-2016 Shots for other viruses offer clues in race for Zika vaccine. (Lauran Neergaard, AP) WASHINGTON — Scientists are racing to create a Zika vaccine, and while they're starting from scratch against a poorly understood disease, copying shots for similar viruses offers a head start….



03-09-2016 No Zika vaccine for another three years: Brazil expert. (Agnès Pedrero, AFP) Geneva - Global health experts agreed Wednesday to prioritise developing vaccines against the Zika virus suspected of causing birth defects, but a Brazilian specialist warned that doing so would take at least three years. ...WHO said Wednesday that 18 companies and research institutes were currently working on Zika vaccines. None have been tested on humans. Another 31 labs are working on developing diagnostic tests, the global health body said, with a profile on the needed diagnostic tools expected to be ready by mid-April. Next week, the WHO is set to convene a meeting of the world's top experts on vector control to determine if a range of radical new methods could also be safely and efficiently used against the Aedes aegypti mosquitos carrying Zika.

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Companies Developing Vaccines Companies with verifiable vaccines R&D interest*

Firm Bharat Biotech International Limited, Hyderabad

Category / Platform Two vaccine candidates: 1) Inactivated purified virus as priority project and 2) a VLP with pRME protein.

Progress

Collaborations

Project initiated in 2014, Preclinical work ongoing, GMP lots 3Q2016

BioManguinhos / Fiocruz

Inactivated purified; YF17DD chimeric; VLP; DNA

Work initiated

Working with GlaxoSmithKline to develop a dengue vaccine that can be used as a model for a Zika.vaccine.

Butantan

Live dengue recombinant (May Clinic); inactivated purified

Work initiated.

Collaboration with US NIH, Mayo Clinic

Codagenix

Live-attenuated fully synthetic viral vaccine with all Zika antigens

Deoptimized synthetic Zika strain designed and made. In vivo attenuation and immunogenicity results to be announced in July, primate testing scheduled August 2016.

US CDC

DNA plasmid expressing VLP; live recombinant adenovirus

Work initiated.

Undisclosed candidate

Vaccine manufacturing contracted for clinical trials by BARDA. Candidate has shown proof of concept in animals and could be rapidly scaled because of relatively simple technology.

Emergent BioSolutions

Evandro Chagas Institute

BARDA, Undisclosed vaccine developer

Collaboration with the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Geovax

MVA-VLP vaccine platform

Work initiated.

GSK Vaccine R&D Center, Rockville, Md

Self-amplifying mRNA vaccine technology (SAM)

Laboratory-based studies in progress.

NIH Vaccine Research Center

Hawaii Biotech, Inc. (HBI)

Purified recombinant proteins made in insect cell lines plus Alhydrogel or proprietary adjuvant from a collaborator.

Work initiated. GMP lots expected 4Q2016

Under discussion

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Companies with verifiable vaccines R&D interest*

Firm

Category / Platform

InOvio (Blue Bell, PA)

GLS-5700: Proprietary SynCon DNA vaccine technology – electroporation

Progress 20 June 2016: IND Phase I announced., 16 May 2016: Induced robust antibody and T cell responses in NHP.

Collaborations GeneOne Life Science, South Korea,

VGXI, The Woodlands, TX contract manufacturing

Institut Pasteur

Lentivirus-vectored, measles vectored

Work initiated

Measles vectored work in collaboration with Themis

Janssen / Johnson & Johnson

Antigen discovery for development of therapeutic mAbs, vaccines.

Funding awarded for Brazilian researcher Leda Castilho to have six months at the JLABS @ TMC incubator in Houston, TX for work with Zika capsular proteins.

Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

NewLink

Purified Inactivated virus

Work initiated, clinical evaluation 2018

US NIH

Zika targeted mutation live attenuated (longer-term), DNA, live VSV recombinant

Work initiated

Novavax

E protein – nanoparticles

Preclinical work initiated. Company is hiring additional staff.

Oxford University, Jenner Inst.

Non-replicating simian adenoviral vector expressing the structural antigens of the Zika virus

Arturo Reyes-Sandoval’s team is expected to have a Zika vaccine ready for pre-clinical tests by April 2016 and if funds are available, the vaccine will be tested in clinical trials by 2017.

Prokarium

Vaxonella oral vaccine platform using attenuated Salmonella enterica.

Received UK grant for vaccine development.

Protein Sciences

Recombinant variations of the E protein from the Zika virus, similar to Protein Sciences candidate vaccines for West Nile virus and Japanese encephalitis virus.

Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

Zika vaccine development initiated in February, anticipates clinical trial later this year.

Butantan. Stephen Whitehead group: live attenuated Zika vaccine modeled off their dengue vaccine. Barney Graham group: modifying existing, very effective DNA-based West Nile vaccine for Zika.

Sinergium Biotech and Mundo Sano Inst. and UMN Pharma Inc., Akita, Japan

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Companies with verifiable vaccines R&D interest*

Firm

Category / Platform

Progress

Replikins

Synthetic replilink peptides Preclinical work initiated

Preclinical work initiated

Sanofi

ChimeriVax (YF17D) platform; and Inactivated Zika virus

ChimeriVax initiated, Inactivated viruom WRAIR to begin advanced development by Sanofi.

Sementis Ltd.

Adapting the Sementis Chikungunya vaccine for Zika virus. The Sementis Copenhagen Vector (SCV) is a genetically modified virus.

Themis Bioscience (Vienna, Austria)

Measles vaccine virus vector (live attenuated)

Work initiated, clinical trials anticipated by 7/2017

Valneva (Lyon, France)

Purified inactivated vaccine

Work initiated, 21 Mar 2016 Preclinical trials in Zika virus infection (Prevention) in France (unspecified route) before March 2016 (Valneva April-2016 presentation)

Vaxart

Oral recombinant adenovirus vaccine platform technology.

Vaccine construct made based on the consensus antigen for targeting ZIKV.

Bivalent Zika VLP vaccine VBI Vaccines

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR)

candidate consisting of a surface E glycoprotein and an internal NS1 glycoprotein on eVLP.

Killed virus vaccine, similar to existing Japanese encephalitis vaccine, and a DNA vaccine.

Collaborations

WRAIR manufacturing inactivated virus

Collaboration with University of South Australia.

Institut Pasteur

eVLPs conformation found to be suitable for receptor binding and cell entry. Starting animal testing for immunogenicity and protection.

Completed preclinical study of the two Zika vaccine candidates. Protection of mice against virus challenge with no viremia, completed. Killed virus vaccine being transferred to Sanofi for advanced development.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center,Harvard Medical School São Paulo Zika Virus Research Network (Rede Zika), Sanofi

* Available documents indicate a possible interest. Other companies that communicated an interest to WHO in early 2016: CureVac, Merck, Pax Vax, Pfizer, Profectus Biosciences, Sinergium, Takeda.

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Antiviral Drugs



07-26-2016 Kineta Secures Funding to Expand Testing of Broad Spectrum Antivirals inZika Virus. (SEATTLE, July 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Kineta, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on the translational development of novel antiviral and immune modulating drugs announced today it has received funding to expand testing of our broad spectrum innate immune antivirals in Zika virus. Supplemental funding for Zika testing is being provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) to evaluate lead broad spectrum antivirals in preclinical models of Zika virus infection. Kineta’s Innate Immune Antiviral program, which will be researched as a treatment for Zika, hinges on a protein called IRF-3, “a critical first responder that is essential for inhibiting viral replication and clearing infection.” Kineta’s website describes the antivirals as a potential first response for a variety of viruses, and the immediacy of this response could help contain Zika’s fast-moving outbreaks. Kineta’s Innate Immune Antiviral program offers a proprietary discovery platform and compounds with a novel mechanism of action that activate the innate immune transcription factor IRF-3, a critical first responder that is essential for inhibiting viral replication and clearing infection. [See Figure 7]. Figure 7: Kineta’s Innate Immune Antiviral Platform.





07-13-2016 Plex Pharmaceuticals awarded $670,865 grant funding from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. (PRNewswire) SAN DIEGO-- Plex Pharmaceuticals ...announced today that it has been awarded a grant of $670,865 from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF) through its Therapeutic Pipeline Program. ...Plex pharmaceuticals additionally has a development program for Dengue, West Nile and Zika antiviral drugs, which has also received support from the NIH... 05-23-2016 Biotron compounds kill Zika virus in tests. (Sydney Morning Herald) Biotech Biotron says two of its compounds have shown effectiveness against the Zika virus but a drug therapy could be a long way off. Biotron, which develops compounds to fight significant viral diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C, said on Monday that two compounds from its library killed the Zika virus in "test tube" tests in the United States. "These early results are encouraging," Biotron managing director Dr Michelle Miller said on Monday. "Identification of these active compounds in our library is a starting point for designing potent drugs against Zika." [See Biotron company press re-

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lease] 05-19-2016 Zika Treatment Search Launched, Fueled By IBM's World Community Grid: Crowdsourced research project aimed at helping scientists cure debilitating disease. ARMONK, N.Y /PRNewswire/ -- IBM's (NYSE: IBM) World Community Grid and scientists are launching an international study to identify drug candidates to cure Zika, a fast spreading virus that the World Health Organization has declared a global public health emergency. IBM and a global team of scientists are inviting anyone with a computer or Android device to join the #OpenZika project. Volunteers don't need to provide time, expertise or money to help; they simply run an app on their Windows, Mac, Linux or Android devices that automatically performs virtual experiments for scientists whenever the machines are otherwise idle. Through the OpenZika project, World Community Grid will power virtual experiments on compounds that could form the basis of antiviral drugs to cure the Zika virus, which has been linked to serious neurological disorders. With dramatically more speed than possible in a traditional lab, the project will screen compounds from existing molecule databases against models of Zika protein and crystal structures. Screening results will quickly be shared with the research community and general public. Promising compounds would then be tested in the collaborators' laboratories. For the OpenZika project, World Community Grid is working with an international team of researchers led in Brazil by the Federal University of Goiás, and with support from Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz); Rutgers University's New Jersey Medical School; Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California San Diego.



05-16-2016 IBM Macromolecule Kills Ebola, Herpes, Dengue, Influenza in Tests. (Seth Augenstein, Drug Discovery & Development) IBM has unveiled a new macromolecule-like “molecular Velcro” to kill viruses like Ebola, herpes, dengue and influenza, according to the company. “We have created an anti-viral macromolecule that can tackle wily viruses by blocking the virus from infecting the cells, regardless of mutations,” said Yi Yan Yang, a scientist at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore, one of the creators of the new material. “It is not toxic to healthy cells and is safe for use. This promising research advance represents years of hard work and collaboration with a global community of researchers.” The polymer has a triple-action process that inhibits and kills the viral molecules. First, the macromolecule’s structure attracts viruses through hydrogen bonds with electrostatic interactions, which bond to the proteins on the viral surface. Then mannose in the macromolecule competes with the viruses for interaction with the human cells. Finally, basic amine groups neutral the pH inside the viral cell to inhibit its replication, in case it does successfully enter a human cell.



04-20-2016 US Phytotherapy Reports Significant Efficacy in Initial Studies on Dengue Virus. (press release) ORLANDO, Fla. US Phytotherapy Inc. [announced it has confirmed] efficacy of its drug candidate for dengue virus inhibition in ...preliminary cell culture studies. ...demonstrated a dose-dependent inhibition of dengue virus infectivity in three distinctly different models of dengue virus infection. These studies employed the serotype dengue virus 2. USPI is continuing with pre-clinical in vivo studies and is in pre-IND discussions with the FDA.



03-14-2016 BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc (Research Triangle Park, NC) said its experimental antiviral drug BCX443 improved survival rates in mice infected with the ZIKV. Two doses of BCX443 were tested against a placebo and oral ribavarin for their effect on survival of immune-deficient mice infected with Zika. After 28 days 7/8 mice that received the "standard" dose survived, but none that received either a low dose, the placebo or ribavirin were alive. Blood Products



06-20-2016 U.S. to help fund technology to eliminate Zika in blood supply (Reuters) The U.S. government said on Monday it has agreed to help fund two pathogen reduction technologies to help reduce the risk of Zika virus and other infections from being transmitted through the blood supply. …[HHS] said the funding will flow through its [BARDA] unit, which will provide initial funding of $30.8 million to Cerus Corp. and $17.5 million to the U.S. division of Japan’s Terumo Corp…” The contract with Terumo is to further develop its Mirasol System to confirm its can reduce the risk of infection through platelets. ...The contract with Terumo is to further develop its Mirasol System to Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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confirm it can reduce the risk of infection through platelets….BARDA also has the option to fund tests using the Mirasol system specifically against the Zika virus…. 03-01-2016 FDA News Release: FDA issues recommendations to reduce the risk of Zika virus transmission by human cell and tissue products. As an additional safety measure FDA issued new guidance with recommendations to reduce the potential transmission risk of Zika virus from human cells, tissues, and cellular and tissue-based products (HCT/Ps). The guidance addresses donation of HCT/Ps from both living and deceased donors, including donors of umbilical cord blood, placenta, or other gestational tissues. On Feb. 16, the FDA issued recommendations for reducing the risk of Zika virus via blood transfusion in the U.S. Diagnostics



05-06-2016 Harvard Researchers Develop Quick And Cheap Test For Zika Virus. (Katrina Pascual, Tech Times) A new test for the Zika virus can greatly improve how rapidly one can find out if he or she is infected, according to Harvard researchers who developed it. It involves just paper, a simple material that can make the test convenient, easy and portable. According to CBC, whose reporter David Common visited the laboratory where the test was created, "in less than an hour, anxious expectant mothers can find out if they’re carrying the disease, which can lead to microcephaly." …



05-25-2016 PositiveID Successfully Detects the Zika Virus on its Firefly Dx Prototype System. (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) DELRAY BEACH, Fla. -- PositiveID Corporation, a life sciences company focused on detection and diagnostics, announced today that it has successfully detected the Zika virus on its Firefly Dx polymerase chain reaction (“PCR”) breadboard prototype pathogen detection system.… PositiveID used assay partner GenArraytion, Inc.’s Aedes aegypt MultiFLEX™ Bioassay test, which targets four genetic regions of the Zika virus, on PositiveID’s Firefly Dx prototype system. The Zika virus test works with an existing GenArraytion MultiFLEX™ Bioassay panel that targets viruses that cause dengue fever, yellow fever and Chikungunya, which are also carried by the same mosquito and are known to cause febrile disease in humans. This test both identifies and discriminates between the Zika African and Brazilian lineages. PositiveID is developing the Firefly Dx prototype system to be a handheld, fully automated, lab quality, real-time device able to detect bio-threats at the point of need.



05-24-2016 Tetracore to Deliver Point of Care Molecular System to Support Zika Testing in Caribbean. ROCKVILLE, Md. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Tetracore, Inc today announced the deployment of the Cirrus DX™ point of care molecular solution for the detection of Zika virus, along with Dengue virus and Chikungunya virus. In collaboration with the Naval Infectious Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory (NIDDL), Naval Medical Research Center, the Cirrus DX systems are being installed at The St. George's Medical School on the island of Grenada. The Cirrus DX solution consists of the Tetracore T-COR 8™ instrument and the Collect-to-Test (C2T™) cartridge. The T-COR 8 instrument can run up to eight samples at a time, a built-in battery that can run the instrument up to four hours without direct power, and a unique connectivity capability that allows for access to the instrument from anywhere in the world on a secure network. The C2T cartridge contains all the components necessary to perform a test and does not require precise addition of specimen.



05-09-2016 SeraCare Launches Industry's First Recombinant Virus Technology-based AccuPlex™ Zika Reference Material. MILFORD, Mass., May 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SeraCare Life Sciences, a manufacturer and leading partner to global in vitro diagnostics manufacturers, today announces the launch of AccuPlex Zika Reference Material to fast track the development and validation of PCR-based Zika virus assays. Based on SeraCare's patentpending AccuPlex recombinant virus technology, AccuPlex Zika Reference Material provides a safe, non-replicative, and fully-extractable positive material which covers the entire Zika virus genome ...in four separate overlapping virus constructs.



03-30-2016 Roche to initiate testing for Zika virus at U.S. Blood Centres under FDA Investigational New Drug Application protocol. New cobas® Zika test will screen blood samples on the cobas® 6800/8800 Systems. (Roche Press Release) PLEASANTON, Calif.-- Roche today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has provided approval to initiate collection and testing of blood samples for screening with the cobas® Zika assay under Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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an Investigational New Drug Application (IND) protocol. The cobas® Zika test for use with the cobas® 6800/8800 Systems, is a qualitative in vitro nucleic acid screening test for the direct detection of Zika virus RNA in plasma specimens from individual human blood donors. 03-30-2016 FDA allows use of investigational test to screen blood donations for Zika virus. (FDA Press Release) SILVER SPRING, Md. -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced the availability of an investigational test to screen blood donations for Zika virus. The screening test may be used under an investigational new drug application (IND)



03-14-2016 FDA asks Zika diagnostic providers to submit their tests for an agency review. (Varun Saxena, Fierce Vaccines) [FDA has sent letters to three diagnostics developers asking for information:

◦ ◦ ◦

First Diagnostic, Lone Tree, CO, Texas Children's Hospital and Houston Methodist Hospital, and MD Biosciences of St. Paul, MN.



03-01-2016 MD Biosciences, St. Paul, MN announced the Release of a Diagnostic Test for Zika Virus. This diagnostic is an RT-PCR that is run by MD Biosciences on a fee-for-service basis in their laboratory. It is not available for sale. Claims: The nucleic acid test can be performed in a few hours in blood, plasma, serum or urine samples. The test is specific for the Zika virus and was shown not to cross react with other infectious viruses such as Dengue, West Nile or Chikunguya.



02-26-2016 Centers for Disease Control. FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the CDC immunoassay, Zika MAC-ELISA. This diagnostic is an IgM antibody capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the in vitro qualitative detection of Zika virus-specific IgM antibodies in human sera and other authorized specimen types. Zika MAC-ELISA will not be distributed in commercial channels, but will be accessible through CDC’s public health network.



02-16-2016 Immune Diagnostics and Research (IDR), Toronto, Ontario, Canada has developed a mobile App called ZikaTracker (zikatracker.net) for voluntary use to report ZIKV cases on a public or private level.



03-03-2016 Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc. announced their engineers are working with U.N. child agency UNICEF to analyze data in an effort to map and anticipate the spread of the Zika virus. Google said in a statement it was providing a $1 million grant to the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund to help it raise awareness about Zika, reduce mosquito populations and support other Zika-related initiatives on the ground, mostly in Latin America. FDA Emergency Use Authorizations for Zika



06-17-2016 Aptima® Zika Virus Assay (Hologic, Inc.) “...for the qualitative detection of RNA from Zika virus in human serum and plasma specimens...by laboratories ...certified ...to perform high complexity tests, or by similarly qualified non-U.S. laboratories.”



05-13-2016 RealStar® Zika Virus RT-PCR Kit U.S. (Altona Diagnostics) “...qualitative detection of RNA from Zika virus in serum or urine (collected alongside a patient-matched serum specimen) ...by laboratories ...certified ...to perform high complexity tests, or by similarly qualified non-U.S. laboratories.”



04-28-2016 Zika Virus RNA Qualitative Real-Time RT-PCR (Focus Diagnostics) “...qualitative detection of RNA from Zika virus in human serum specimens ...by qualified laboratories designated by Focus Diagnostics, Inc., and, in the United States, certified ...to perform high complexity tests.”



03-17-2016 Trioplex Real-time RT-PCR Assay (CDC) “...use of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Trioplex Real-time RT-PCR Assay (Trioplex rRT-PCR) for the qualitative detection and differentiation of RNA from Zika virus, dengue virus, and chikungunya virus in human sera or cerebrospinal fluid (collected alongside a patientmatched serum specimen), and for the qualitative detection of Zika virus RNA in urine and amniotic fluid (each collected alongside a patient-matched serum specimen). ...by qualified laboratories ...certified ...to perform high complexity tests….”

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02-26-2016 Zika MAC-ELISA (CDC) “...use of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Zika Immunoglobulin M (IgM) Antibody Capture Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (Zika MAC-ELISA) for the presumptive detection of Zika virus-specific IgM in human sera or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that is submitted alongside a patient-matched serum specimen ...by qualified laboratories ...certified ...to perform high complexity tests.... Where there are positive or equivocal results from the Zika MAC-ELISA, confirmation of the presence of anti-Zika IgM antibodies requires additional testing by CDC, or by authorized laboratories….” Antibody Reagents





02-21-2016 GeneTex Releases Extensive Line of Research Antibodies to Detect Zika Virus Proteins. (GeneTex, PRNewswire) IRVINE, Calif. -- GeneTex, Inc., a research antibody manufacturer, is proud to announce the release of a collection of antibodies against eight proteins encoded by the Zika virus (ZIKV) genome, including Capsid, M, Envelope (E), NS1, NS2B, NS3, NS4B, and NS5 proteins. These antibodies were independently validated by western blot on protein extracts from ZIKV-infected Vero cells. In addition, preliminary immunofluorescence (IF) microscopy staining suggests that several of GeneTex's Zika antibodies can distinguish ZIKV-infected cells from those infected by Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) or by the four serotypes of dengue virus (DENV). ...at least four of their antibody reagents (M, NS2B, E, and NS4B) are either completely or largely specific for ZIKA…. Clinical Research 07-30-2016 ClinicalTrial.gov There now nine clinical trials registered at the time of compilation, as shown in the following table, but most are observational.





NCT01967238 (Rockefeller Univ.) aims to examine IgG glycan composition in healthy adults previously diagnosed with dengue, zika or chikungunya virus after IM administration of one of several influenza vaccines.



NCT02809443 (GeneOne Life Science, Inc.) is a Phase I dose-ranging Study of the InOvio GLS-5700 DNA vaccine in healthy subjects.



NCT02840487 (NIAID) Safety and Immunogenicity of a Zika Virus DNA Vaccine, VRC-ZKADNA085-00VP, in Healthy Adults.

07-06-2016 NIH awards funding to three universities for Zika research. (Healio Infectious Disease News) Three universities have been awarded more than $4 million in research funding by the NIH to study the Zika virus.... The Vaccine Treatment and Evaluation Unit at Baylor College of Medicine, Saint Louis University School of Medicine and Emory University School of Medicine will conduct research to study the infection and immune responses of Zika virus to learn diagnostic and infection control measures and vaccine development for the virus. Researchers at Baylor, which received more than $1 million in funding, and Emory, awarded $1.7 million, will enroll 200 volunteers, aged 15 years and older, from areas where the virus is circulating locally, according to a release. All participants, with suspected or confirmed Zika virus, must be referred by their PCPs or their local health department before volunteering. Those universities, along with Saint Louis University, which received $1.3 million in funding, will analyze the participants’ blood specimens for three objectives specific to the sites. They will: ◦ characterize immune responses (Mark J. Mulligan, MD, distinguished professor of medicine at Emory University); ◦ understand the cell-mediated immune response (Daniel Hoft, MD, PhD, director of the division of infectious diseases at Saint Louis University); ◦ and determine where the virus is in the body and how long it stays in the fluids through quantitative PCR testing (Kristy Murray, DVM, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine)

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Mosquito Vectors



07-28-2016 Genetically Modified Mosquitoes Released in Cayman Islands. (AP) GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands — The first wave of genetically modified mosquitoes were released Wednesday in the Cayman Islands as part of a new effort to control the insect that spreads Zika and other viruses, officials in the British Island territory said. Genetically altered male mosquitoes, which don't bite but are expected to mate with females to produce offspring that die before reaching adulthood, were released in the West Bay area of Grand Cayman Island, according to a joint statement from the Cayman Islands Mosquito Research and Control Unit and British biotech firm Oxitec. The mosquitoes will be released over nine months in an area known to be a hot spot for the Aedes aegypti species, which are not native to the Cayman Islands…



07-25-2016 Evolva’s nootkatone enters NIH-sponsored studies to assess its effectiveness against mosquitoes that transmit Zika virus. (Businesswire) ...Colorado State University (CSU)...researchers will test both the repellency and insecticidal properties of nootkatone against mosquitoes infected with the Zika virus. Data from these studies will supplement Evolva’s ongoing research to fulfil the US Environmental Protection Agency's requirements for the commercial launch of nootkatone. ...Evolva and the CDC initially examined nootkatone’s effectiveness for tick control as a novel approach to reduce the spread of tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease. In late February 2016, Evolva’s nootkatone collaboration with the CDC expanded to include an additional focus on mosquitoes… CDC research has already shown that nootkatone both repels and kills Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits Zika and yellow fever, and the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis which transmits Lyme disease. Nootkatone appears to have a mode of action distinct from that of currently used pesticides, and therefore, could potentially be valuable for mitigating pesticide resistance in mosquito vectors. ...Nootkatone is a citrus ingredient that is characteristically associated with grapefruit. It can be extracted in minute quantities from the skin of grapefruit or the bark of the Alaska yellow cedar (Nootka cypress), or produced on an industrial scale from brewing via yeast fermentation….



07-22-2016 Zika found in common house mosquitoes in Brazil. (CNN) Researchers in Brazil announced Thursday the "presence of the Zika virus" in Culex mosquitoes (the common house mosquito) in the eastern city of Recife. These findings were released with a word of caution, saying "the obtained data will require additional studies in order to assess the potential participation of Culex in the spread of Zika and its role in the epidemic." ...Before this study was completed...Zika was thought to be carried solely by the Aedes aegypt mosquito. Culex mosquitoes are "20 times greater than the population of Aedes aegypt" in the Recife metropolitan area….



07-22-2016 Puerto Rico rejects insecticide to fight Zika amid protests. (Danica Coto, AP) SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico's governor announced Friday that he will not authorize aerial spraying with the insecticide naled to fight an increase in Zika cases as U.S. health officials have urged. Instead, Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla said he will support the spraying of Bti, an organic larvicide. He said it should be sufficient to fight the mosquito-borne virus along with other ongoing efforts, but hoped no child would be "born with congenital defects because of the decision I took."…



07-22-2016 Zika investigations eating up funds, Florida officials say. (Jennifer Kay, AP) MIAMI (AP) — Florida mosquito control officials worry they won't be able to keep up their efforts to contain the bugs that carry Zika without federal funding, even as concern mounts that the first infection from a mosquito bite on the U.S. mainland is near. On Thursday, fogging trucks drove through a Miami-Dade County neighborhood…. "We want to make sure we reduce the mosquito population down to zero if possible in this case," said Chalmers Vasquez, Miami-Dade County's mosquito control operations manager. Vasquez's inspectors are going door-to-door, trapping mosquitoes for testing, hand-spraying and removing the standing water where they breed. Such aggressive mosquito control and surveillance is now routine in Miami-Dade County, which leads Florida in confirmed Zika cases linked to travel. The tropical mosquito that carries Zika, Aedes aegypti, likes to live near people and it doesn't travel far. Better building construction, more extensive use of air conditioning and window screens, wider use of bug repellant and broader mosquito control measures will help control the spread of Zika by mosquitoes in the U.S., experts believe… Still, even suspected cases trigger costly responses, as inspectors sweep areas to eliminate their breeding sites, set

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traps and kill any mosquitoes they see. ...The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it has provided Florida $8 million in Zika-specific funding, and the White House has said the state can anticipate receiving another $5.6 million.... But the state hasn't been able to fill most of the $15 million in emergency Zika funding requests, and Congress left on a seven-week vacation without giving the Obama administration any of the $1.9 billion it sought for mosquito control, vaccine development and other steps....The lack of money almost certainly will delay development of a vaccine…. 07-19-2016 UK House of Lords recommended GM mosquito trials. (Austin Harris, Cayman Reporter) The House of Lords, the upper house of the UK Parliament, recommended the use of genetically modified insects, including the mosquito, to tackle insect borne diseases. In a report published on 17 December 2015...the House of Lords said that “the potential of GM insect technologies, should not be over-stated...the technologies do not represent a panacea” and should therefore be considered as part of a holistic approach to control insect borne diseases while also reducing agricultural pests…. 07-08-2016 Killer Fungus Destroys Zika Mosquitoes From the Inside Out . (Newsweek) Parasitic fungi can kill developing mosquitoes with their spores, and that fungal fight could be harnessed as a way to control the spread of diseases like dengue and Zika. The fungi produce little buds called blastospores in fresh water, where the larvae of Aedes aegypt mosquitoes grow. ...blastospores secrete a thick mucus which helps the spores stick to the outside of larvae, which allows them to kill the larvae within 12 to 24 hours. That means releasing blastospores into ponds could actually be an environmentally friendly way of controlling mosquitoes…. [See Alkhaibari AM, et al.] 06-15-2016 New Maps Show Where Zika Mosquitoes Can Live in the U.S. As summer approaches, health officials say don't panic—but be prepared. (Jeneen Interlandi, Consumer) The official first day of summer is just a week away, and public health officials are preparing as best they can for local outbreaks of Zika. With 40 million people traveling back and forth between the U.S. and various Zika-affected countries every year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, local transmission is inevitable. Late last week, the agency held a briefing with governors from the states most likely to be hit with localized Zika outbreaks (Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Georgia, Hawaii, and California). The states reviewed preparedness plans that include CDC Emergency Response Teams (CERT), ready to deploy to any state where an outbreak occurs…. [See Hahn MB, et al. 2016] Figure 8: Left: Distribution of A. aegyptae. Right: Distribution of A. albopictus.



06-08-2016 National Academies: Too soon to release ‘gene-drive’ organisms into nature. (Joel Achenbach, Washington Post) An elite panel of experts convened by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine has concluded that it is premature to use "gene-drive" technology to spread genes through insects in an effort to combat malaria, Zika, dengue, chikungunya, Lyme and other diseases. But the panel said this kind of genetic engineering offers great promise, potentially, and experimental research should continue, including carefully controlled field tests. The panel's report, released Wednesday, has no force of law but will probably be influential in the fastmoving debate about how, when and whether to use genetic engineering as a tool to fight pathogens.

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06-08-2016 U.S. Academies gives cautious go-ahead to gene drive. (Elizabeth Pennisi, Science) Although it may take 5 years or more before researchers will be ready to try a controversial technology for eradicating or replacing populations of pests and vectors in the field, today a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee urged researchers, funding organizations, and regulatory agencies to waste no time in coming up with ways to deal with the societal and regulatory issues surrounding this technology, called gene drive. Its report, Gene Drives on the Horizon: Advancing Science, Navigating Uncertainty and Aligning Research with Public Values, stresses that although gene drive offers great promise for agriculture, conservation, and public health, neither the science nor the current regulatory system is adequate to address the risks and requirements of gene drive–altered organisms. 05-26-2016 Some Experts Question Extent of Zika Threat to U.S. (Dennis Thompson, HealthDay News) Are health officials in the United States overreacting to the threat posed by the Zika virus this summer? Some leading insect and infectious-diseases experts think so, arguing that the mosquito-borne virus is unlikely to become a widespread hazard to pregnant women throughout the United States. ...Chris Barker, a mosquito-borne virus researcher at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine... said Zika should follow a pattern similar to other tropical diseases spread by mosquito bites, such as dengue fever and chikungunya, which have failed to gain any significant foothold in the United States. "We do a pretty good job of shielding ourselves from mosquito bites in this country, with our screening and air conditioning. That seems to be enough to limit the risk for dengue, and we think the same will be true for Zika," Barker said. If that proves true, then small Zika outbreaks could occur in southern states where the breeds of mosquito that carry these diseases are most active, Barker and other experts said. 05-23-2016 Mosquito Trap Maker Can't Meet Demand Amid Zika Outbreak. (Jennifer Kay, AP) The "enormous demand" created by the international Zika epidemic for traps used to monitor mosquitoes that carry the virus caught their German manufacturer off-guard, two company officials said Friday. ..."Yes, unfortunately we have indeed a problem with the enormous demand of the traps due to the Zika outbreak," Biogents board member Martin Geier confirmed in an email Friday to The Associated Press. ...The black, cylindrical traps, slightly larger than ice buckets, draw Aedes aegypt and Asian tiger mosquitoes into bags by emitting a scent that mimics the odor of humans. "The BG Sentinel trap currently is the best trap for attracting the Aedes mosquitoes. There are other traps on the market, but if you're trying to do surveillance for Aedes, this one is specifically designed to attract them," said Susan Weinstein, Arkansas' public health veterinarian. 05-23-2016 Oxitec CEO to Testify Before Congressional Committee on May 25th. OXFORD, England, /PRNewswire/ -- Oxitec CEO Hadyn Parry will testify on Wednesday, May 25th at 10:15 a.m. ET before the United States House Committee on Science, Space and Technology about the role genetically engineered mosquitos can play in controlling the spread of the Aedes aegypt mosquito, a known carrier of the Zika virus. 05-13-2016 Unique Chicago Mosquito Public Awareness Campaign Provides Disease Education and Prevention Tips: Mosquito sculpture, bus shelter and sidewalk signage promote education program designed to call attention to ways public can limit exposure and protect themselves in warmer months. (Central Life Sciences) SCHAUMBURG, Ill., May 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Beginning May 13 through June 6, just in time for warmer weather, Chicagoans will take notice of the 4.5-ft. by 4-ft. by 10.5-ft. mosquito perched atop the bus shelter at State and Lake Streets. The effort is part of a public awareness campaign to educate Chicagoans about the potentially deadly diseases the "World's Deadliest" insect can spread, and aims to provide tips for preventing exposure and transmission. In addition to the mosquito, the bus shelter will feature facts comparing the impact of mosquitoes against some of nature's threats more commonly viewed as the deadliest in the world. Additional sidewalk display panels will appear across Chicago to promote the campaign and highlight the threat posed by mosquitoes through the spread of disease, including the West Nile and Zika viruses…. 05-09-2016 Elsevier Launches New Portuguese and Spanish Versions of its Free Online Zika Virus Resource Center. SAO PAULO, Brazil, May 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ ...Aedes mosquitoes carrying the bacterium Wolbachia - found inside the cells of 60 percent of all insect species - are drastically less able to transmit Zika virus, say researchers at Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (FIOCRUZ) in a study published May 4 in Cell Host & Microbe. This is the first re-

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port on the effect of Wolbachia bacteria on the Zika virus. Research like this - plus reviews, editorials, letters and comments on the Zika virus - are available for free in the new Portuguese and Spanish versions of the Elsevier Zika Virus Resource Center 05-09-2016 Cayman Islands to deploy genetically modified mosquitoes. (Jennifer Kay & Ben Fox, AP) Miami — British biotech company Oxitec and the Cayman Islands government announced plans Thursday to release millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in the fight against a species that spreads Zika and other diseases. Deployment of the mosquitoes against the Aedes aegypt species in the Cayman Islands is a major advance for Oxitec, which has promoted the method heavily as an environmentally safe way to combat the vectors of mosquito-borne illnesses while confronting public concerns about the technology. The company has deployed its mosquitoes to fight Zika in Brazil following initial trials there and previously conducted tests in the Cayman Islands and Panama. Oxitec and offifficials in the Florida Keys have proposed testing there as well and are awaiting U.S. regulatory approval. 04-29-2016 First widely available Zika test OK'd for emergency use. (AP)WASHINGTON — The first commercial test for the Zika virus has been cleared for emergency use in the U.S. and could be available by next week. The FDA granted the authorization Thursday to the test's developer, Quest Diagnostics, which said it would make it widely available to doctors for patient testing. 04-27-2016 South Korea unveils Zika-proof Olympic uniforms. (AP) SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea's Olympic committee on Wednesday unveiled Zika-proof uniforms complete with mosquito repellent it says will help protect athletes from the virus at this year's games in Rio de Janeiro. Mosquito-repellent chemicals were added to the outftfits, which all include long pants, long-sleeved shirts and jackets. The uniforms will be worn by athletes during cere monies, training and at the athletes' village, the Korean Olympic Committee said. The committee said it couldn't make changes to the uniforms worn during competition because of strict rules and performance concerns, although athletes will be allowed to use anti-mosquito spray during competition. 04-20-2016 GMO mosquito plan headed for residents' vote in Florida Keys. (AP) KEY WEST, Fla. — Residents in the Florida Keys will get to vote on whether genetically modified mosquitoes should be released in their neighborhood. The mosquito control district in the island chain wants the British biotech firm Oxitec to test its modified mosquitoes in a neighborhood of 444 homes clustered on a relatively isolated peninsula north of Key West. 04-19-2016 Eradication of Zika-spreading mosquito in Brazil unlikely. (Peter Prengaman, Mauricio Savarese, AP) RECIFE, Brazil — In the 1940s and 1950s, Brazilian authorities made such a ferocious assault on Aedes aegypti — the mosquito that spreads the Zika virus — that it was eradicated from Latin America's largest country by 1958. But Aedes aegypti returned, and now Brazil has launched another offensive against the pest, employing hundreds of thousands of troops to fumigate and educate people about how to eliminate its habitats. ...But eradication experts say there is little chance Brazil can come anywhere near stamping out the pest like it did a half century ago. The world is different, with globalization bringing more travelers and trade across borders. And Brazil is different; its resources are limited as the country suffers through its worst recession in decades and its president is focused on battttling impeachment for allegedly breaking fiscal rules in managing government funds. Eradication efforts so far have been disjointed and more public relations than substance, critics say. 04-13-2016 SC Johnson Donates 50,000 Units of OFF!® Mosquito Repellent to AmeriCares to Assist in El Salvador and Florida. RACINE, Wis., April 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- SC Johnson today announced a partnership with AmeriCares to donate 50,000 units of OFF!® personal repellent to be distributed in Florida and El Salvador to help families combat the mosquitoes that may carry disease. This donation is part of SC Johnson's commitment to provide at least $15 million over the next year to help protect families from the Zika virus. "El Salvador, with one of the highest rates of Zika in Central America, has a pressing need for assistance. In the U.S., Florida has the highest number of travel-related cases of Zika and many residents who travel frequently to countries with Zika outbreaks. …In coordination with the CDC Foundation, SCJ supported the Zika Action Plan Summit held by the White House and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on April 1, and also donated to the CDC's Zika Prevention Kits. Additional donations have been made to the Rio de Janeiro-based Children's Health Association and the County of Hawaii Civil Defense Agency. 4-13-2016 National Health Surveillance Agency of Brazil (Anvisa) to Grant Special Temporary Registration for Ox-

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itec's GE Mosquito. OXFORD, England, April 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --The National Health Surveillance Agency of Brazil (Anvisa) announced yesterday that they would grant a special temporary registration (RET, Registro Especial Temporário) to Oxitec to deploy its genetically engineered mosquito, OX513A, known as Friendly Aedes aegypt, throughout the country. Oxitec's biological approach to control the spread of the Aedes aegypt mosquito, the primary vector for transmitting dengue, Zika and chikungunya viruses to humans, was approved by National Technical Biosafety Commission (CTNBio) in 2014. However at that time, Anvisa did not yet have legislation in place to regulate this innovative class of vector control technology. With the guidance issued, Anvisa is elaborating new rules to provide Brazil with a regulatory framework that is able to deal with this and any similar products that may be developed. In the interim Anvisa will grant Oxitec the freedom to use Friendly Aedes aegypt in projects across the country. This should assist the development of the product within Brazil so that it can be used as part of programs designed to fight Aedes aegypt, the dangerous vector of dengue, chikungunya and Zika. 04-12-2016 Researchers develop mosquito-killing algae to fight mosquito-related viruses. (Daily Texan) UT researchers have biologically engineered a new algae that can kill mosquitoes during their larval stage. Molecular biology professor and principal investigator David Herrin, UT alumnus and principal researcher Seongjoon Kang and co-researcher Obed W. Odom have developed a new method for killing the mosquitoes by incorporating a synthetic version of a Bacillus Thuringiensis israelensis (BTI) gene into chlamydomonas green algae. The BTI gene produces toxic Cry proteins that target mosquitoes. Consumers will be able to apply the algae on a large scale via airplane, or in their backyards through methods such as spray-bottles, according to Herrin. The team set out to combat mosquito-linked disease six years ago, after Herrin was awarded part of a $52 million grant for infectious disease research by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation…. 03-11-2016 FDA Publishes Preliminary Finding of No Significant Impact on Oxitec's Self-limiting Mosquito (PR Newswire) The FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine (FDA-CVM) today released in the Federal Register a preliminary finding of no significant impact (FONSI) on Oxitec's self-limiting OX513A Aedes aegypti mosquito for an investigational trial in the Florida Keys. The finding agrees with the draft environmental assessment (EA) submitted by Oxitec, Ltd., that concludes a field trial of the Company's genetically engineered (GE) OX513A mosquitoes in Key Haven, Florida, will not result in a significant impact on the environment. 03-12-2016 GMO Mosquitoes: FDA Grants Approval In Order To Fight Zika Virus, Is This A Good Idea? (Louis Babcock, Inquisitr) The United States FDA has granted approval for GMO mosquitoes to be released in Florida in order to combat the Zika virus. These … mosquitoes have had their genes manipulated in such a way that a lethal gene will be passed on to all of the offspring…. The release … is a trial run in order to determine if this is a viable method to fight the Zika virus. The FDA has stated that there will be “no significant impact” on the local environment…. The Zika virus is passed through the bite from a female mosquito (Aedes aegypt). The genetically modified mosquito will be a male Aedes aegypt… [which] will mate but due to the modification, the offspring will not survive. By making sure a lethal gene is passed on to the GMO’s offspring, the Zika virus will be eradicated due to no living female Aedes aegypt left. Timeline of Zika's Origin and Global Spread.

• 07-27-2016 TIMELINE - Zika's origin and global spread (Reuters) The following timeline charts the origin and spread of the Zika virus from its discovery nearly 70 years ago. 1947: Scientists researching yellow fever in Uganda's Zika Forest identify the virus in a rhesus monkey 1948: Virus recovered from Aedes africanus mosquito in Zika Forest 1952: First human cases detected in Uganda and Tanzania 1954: Virus found in Nigeria 1960s-80s: Zika detected in mosquitoes and monkeys across equatorial Africa 1969-83: Zika found in equatorial Asia, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan 2007: Zika spreads from Africa and Asia, first large outbreak on Pacific island of Yap 2012: Researchers identify two distinct lineages of the virus, African and Asian

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2013-14: Zika outbreaks in French Polynesia, Easter Island, the Cook Islands and New Caledonia. Retrospective analysis shows possible link to birth defects and severe neurological complications in babies in French Polynesia March 2, 2015: Brazil reports illness characterized by skin rash in northeastern states July 17: Brazil reports detection of neurological disorders in newborns associated with history of infection Oct. 5: Cape Verde has cases of illness with skin rash Oct. 22: Colombia confirms cases of Zika Oct. 30: Brazil reports increase in microcephaly, abnormally small heads, among newborns Nov. 11: Brazil declares public health emergency November 2015-January 2016: Cases reported in Suriname, Panama, El Salvador, Mexico, Guatemala, Paraguay, Venezuela, French Guiana, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Guyana, Ecuador, Barbados, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Curacao, Jamaica Feb. 1: World Health Organization (WHO) declares public health emergency of international concern Feb. 2: First case of Zika transmission in United States; local health officials say likely contracted through sex, not mosquito bite Feb. 5: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says virus being actively transmitted in 30 countries, mostly in the Americas Feb. 8: U.S. President Barack Obama requests $1.8 billion to fight Zika Feb. 12: Brazil investigating potential link between Zika infections and 4,314 suspected cases of microcephaly. Of those, 462 confirmed as microcephaly and 41 determined to be linked to virus Feb. 17: Brazil investigating potential link between Zika and 4,443 suspected cases of microcephaly. Of those, 508 confirmed as microcephaly and most of those cases are linked to the virus. WHO seeks $56 million to fight Zika. Feb. 18: CDC adds Aruba and Bonaire to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 32. Feb. 23: CDC investigating 14 cases of possible sexual transmission of Zika. CDC also adds Trinidad and Tobago and Marshall Islands to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 34. Feb. 25: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases number more than 580 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating an additional 4,100 suspected cases of microcephaly. Feb. 27: France detects first sexually transmitted case of Zika. Feb. 29: CDC adds St. Maarten, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 36. March 1: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 641 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating an additional 4,222 suspected cases of microcephaly. March 8: WHO advises pregnant women to avoid areas with Zika outbreak and said sexual transmission of the virus is "relatively common." March 9: CDC adds New Caledonia to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 37. March 15: Cuba reports first case of Zika contracted in the country. March 16: Cape Verde identifies first case of microcephaly. March 18: CDC says during Jan. 1, 2015 to Feb. 26, 2016, 116 residents of the United States had evidence of recent Zika virus infection based on laboratory testing. Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 863 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating an additional 4,268 suspected cases of microcephaly. March 19: CDC adds Cuba to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 38. March 21: South Korea confirms first case of Zika. March 22: CDC adds Dominica to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 39. Bangladesh confirms first case of Zika virus. Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 907 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating an additional 4,293 suspected cases of microcephaly. March 29: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 944 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil said the number of suspected cases of microcephaly dropped slightly to 4,291. March 31: According to the World Health Organization, there is a strong scientific consensus that Zika can cause the birth defect microcephaly as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis, though conclusive proof may take months or years. April 1: CDC adds Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 40. April 4: CDC adds Fiji to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 41.

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April 5: Vietnam reports first Zika infections. April 6: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 1,046 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. The number of suspected cases of microcephaly dropped to 4,046. April 7: St. Lucia confirms first two cases of Zika, contracted locally. April 12: Brazil says confirmed microcephaly cases rose to 1,113 and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. The number of suspected cases of microcephaly dropped to 3,836. It was the second week in a row that the overall total figure fell. April 13: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that infection with the Zika virus in pregnant women is a cause of the birth defect microcephaly and other severe brain abnormalities in babies. The CDC said now that the causal relationship has been established, several important questions must still be answered with studies that could take years. CDC adds St. Lucia to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 42. April 18: Peru reports first case of sexually transmitted Zika virus. CDC adds Belize to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 43. April 25: Canada confirms first sexually transmitted Zika case. April 26: Brazil says the number of confirmed cases of microcephaly climbed to 1,198 from 1,168 in the week through April 23, but suspected ones under investigation continued to decline to 3,710 from 3,741 a week ago. Brazil registered 91,387 likely cases of the Zika virus from February until April 2, the health ministry said, in its first national report on the epidemic. April 29: Puerto Rico reports first death related to Zika, according to the CDC. The country also confirmed 683 Zika cases, including 65 pregnant women, and five suspected cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome from Zika, the CDC reported. May 4: Panama confirms four microcephaly cases tied to Zika. May 6: Spain gets first case of Zika-related brain defect in a fetus. May 9: CDC adds Papua New Guinea, Saint Barthelemy and Peru to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 46. Honduras suspects first case of microcephaly in Zika patient. May 11: Brazil says the number of confirmed cases of microcephaly dropped to 1,326 in the week through May 7 as doctors and Brazilian health officials find that some suspected cases of microcephaly are not the disorder. Suspected ones under investigation continued to decline to 3,433. May 12: CDC adds Grenada to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 47. May 20: WHO says an outbreak of Zika virus on the African island chain of Cape Verde is of the same strain as the one blamed for birth abnormalities in Brazil. May 24: Brazil reports the number of confirmed cases of microcephaly at 1,434 for the latest week to May 21. Suspected ones under investigation declined to 3,257. May 26: CDC adds Argentina to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 48. June 9: WHO issues updated guidelines on prevention of sexual transmission of the Zika virus, including advising women living in areas where the virus is being transmitted to delay getting pregnant. June 14: El Salvador confirms first case of microcephaly linked to Zika. June 23: CDC reports seven babies in the United States with microcephaly or other Zika-related birth defects such as serious brain abnormalities, and five lost pregnancies from either miscarriage, stillbirth or termination. June 28: First baby with Zika-related birth defect microcephaly born in Florida. June 30: CDC adds Anguilla to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 49. Guinea-Bissau confirms three cases of Zika, government says. Spain records first case of sexually transmitted Zika virus, health authorities said. July 8: CDC confirmed that a Utah resident's death last month is the first Zika-related death in the continental United States. July 14: CDC adds Saint Eustatius to countries and territories with active outbreaks, bringing total to 50. July 15: New York City's health department reports the first female-to-male transmission of the Zika virus. July 18: CDC reports that caregiver of Utah man who died of Zika tested positive for virus. July 19: Florida health officials are investigating a case of Zika virus infection that does not appear to have stemmed from travel to another region with an outbreak. July 21: CDC reports 400 pregnant women in U.S. with evidence of Zika infection, up from 346 a week ago. The health agency also reports three more babies born in U.S. with birth defects linked to the Zika virus, bringing total to 12. Florida Department of Health said it was investigating a non travel-related case of Zika in Broward County, marking the second such case in the U.S. July 22: New York City health officials reports first baby born with Zika-related birth defect. July 25: Spain reports first case in Europe of baby born with Zika-related defect.

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CDC issues updated recommendations for preventing and testing for Zika infection, warning that the virus can be transmitted through unprotected sex with an infected female partner. July 26: Honduras detects 8 cases of babies with Zika-related defect. July 27: Paraguay reports first cases of microcephaly linked to Zika. July 29: Florida authorities report what is believed to be the first evidence of local Zika transmission in the continental United States. SOURCES: World Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Reuters (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by the Americas Desk)

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Historical Information 05-25-2016 Origins of the Zika virus revealed by discovery in vaults of Glasgow university. (TIM BUGLER, Daily Mirror) The research papers, dating back to 1947, belonged to Professor Alexander Haddow a member of the team who originally discovered the virus. Original documents proving that a remarkable Scot was the first to identify terrifying Zika virus as long ago as 1947 have been found in a vault at the University of Glasgow. The handwritten original research papers, which include hand-drawn graphs, annotated mosquito catch tables and slides depicting the forests in Uganda, where the virus was originally found, belonged to Professor Alexander Haddow - a key member of the investigative team who originally discovered the virus. Figure 9: Professor Haddow and associates beneath the Haddow Towers in Uganda Picture credit: University of Glasgow archives.



03-14-2016 Zika is the latest battle in a long war between humans and mosquitoes. (Nick Miroff and Brady Dennis, WaPo) [Historical perspective on mosquito-borne diseases]



1945. It's Up to You: Dengue - Yellow Fever Control (USPHS, 1945) This [very dated] film depicts a [idealized] representative community campaign to control Aedes aegypt mosquitoes in order to prevent dengue and yellow fever. Shots include: breeding pond for Aedes aegypt mosquitoes, other breeding places (water-holding containers), Aedes aegypt on a man's hand, Aedes aegypt larvae in water, emptying water from containers, fish in aquarium eating larvae, and publicity media encouraging mosquito eradication and control. References Alkhaibari AM, et al. (2016) Metarhizium brunneum Blastospore Pathogenesis in Aedes aegypt Larvae: Attack on Several Fronts Accelerates Mortality. PLoS Pathog 12(7): e1005715. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1005715 Larocca RA et al. Vaccine protection against Zika virus from Brazil. Nature (2016) doi: 10.1038/nature18952 Published online 28 June 2016 Zika: Selected News Items, Cumulative 2016 © John W. Cross, 2016.

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Barba-Spaeth G, et al. Structural basis of potent Zika-dengue virus antibody cross-neutralization. Nature. 2016 Jun 23. doi:10.1038/nature18938. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 27338953. Dudley, D. M. et al. A rhesus macaque model of Asian-lineage Zika virus infection. Nat. Commun. 7:12204 doi: 10.1038/ncomms12204 (2016) Dejnirattisai W, et al. Dengue virus sero-cross-reactivity drives antibody-dependent enhancement of infection with zika virus. Nat Immunol. 2016 Jun 23. doi:10.1038/ni.3515. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 27339099 Pingen et al. Host inflammatory response to mosquito bites enhances severity of arbovirus infection. Immunity, 2016 DOI:10.1016/j.immuni.2016.06.002 Hanners et al., Western Zika Virus in Human Fetal Neural Progenitors Persists Long Term with Partial Cytopathic and Limited Immunogenic Effects, Cell Reports (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2016.05.075 Quicke KM et al. Zika Virus Infects Human Placental Macrophages. Cell Host Microbe, published online 27 May 2016. doi:10.1016/j.chom.2016.05.015 Shan C. et al. An Infectious cDNA Clone of Zika Virus to Study Viral Virulence, Mosquito Transmission, and Antiviral Inhibitors. Cell Host & Microbe. 2016 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chom.2016.05.004 Sirohi D et al. The 3.8Å resolution cryo-EM structure of Zika virus. Science, 2016 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf5316

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