Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Oct 21;16(10):e0010812.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0010812. eCollection 2022 Oct.

The global trends and regional differences in incidence of Zika virus infection and implications for Zika virus infection prevention

Zirui Guo  1 , Wenzhan Jing  1 , Jue Liu  1 , Min Liu  1
Affiliations

The global trends and regional differences in incidence of Zika virus infection and implications for Zika virus infection prevention

Zirui Guo et al. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. .

Abstract

Background: Zika virus (ZIKV) infection has potential result in severe birth effects. An improved understanding of global trend and regional differences is needed.

Methods: Annual ZIKV infection episodes and incidence rates were collected from Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. Episodes changes and estimated annual percentage changes (EAPCs) of age-standardized incidence rate (ASR) were calculated. Top passenger airport-pairs were obtained from the International Air Transport Association to understand places susceptible to imported ZIKV cases.

Results: Globally, the ASR increased by an average of 72.85% (95%CI: 16.47% to 156.53%) per year from 2011 to 2015 and subsequently decreased from 20.25 per 100,000 in 2015 to 3.44 per 100,000 in 2019. Most of ZIKV infections clustered in Latin America. The proportion of episodes in Central and Tropical Latin America decreased in 2019 with sporadic episodes elsewhere. High Socio-Demographic Index (SDI) regions had more episodes in 2019 than in 2015. Additionally, 15-49 years group had the largest proportion of episodes, females had a higher number of episodes, and a higher incidence rate of 70 plus group was observed in males than females. Certain cities in Europe, North America and Latin America/Caribbean had a high population mobility in ZIKV outbreak areas considered a high risk of imported cases.

Conclusions: ZIKV infection is still a public health threat in Latin America and Caribbean and high SDI regions suffered an increasing trend of ZIKV infection. Interventions such as development of surveillance networks and vector-control should be attached to ZIKV control in these key regions. Reproductive suggestions should be taken to reduce ZIKV-related birth defects for the people of reproductive age who are facing a higher threat of ZIKV infection, especially females. Moreover, surveillance of travellers is needed to reverse the uptrends of travel-related imported ZIKV infection. More studies focusing on ZIKV should be performed to make targeted and effective prevention strategies in the future.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. The global incidence of ZIKV infection in 204 countries and territories in 2019.
(A) The ASRs of ZIKV infection in 2019; (B) The episodes ZIKV infection of female with age between 15 to 49 in 2019. Global and local mapping were presented using the ArcGIS software. Basemap shapefile’s map content from http://bzdt.ch.mnr.gov.cn/, approval number GS (2016) 1663.
Fig 2
Fig 2. The EAPCs of ZIKV infection ASRs from 2011 to 2015, and from 2015 to 2019 by regions.
EAPC, estimated annual percentage change; ASR, age-standardized incidence rate; CI, confidence interval; SDI, Socio-demographic Index.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Age group distribution of ZIKV infection episodes by GBD region in 2011, 2015 and 2019.
Fig 4
Fig 4. The episodes of ZIKV infection by age group, and by SDI region, from 2011–2019.
SDI: Socio-demographic Index.
Fig 5
Fig 5. The episodes of ZIKV infection by age group, and by sex, from 2011–2019.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. World Health Organization: Zika virus 2018 [February 25]. https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/zika-virus.
    1. Petersen LR, Jamieson DJ, Powers AM, Honein MA. Zika Virus. N Engl J Med. 2016;374(16):1552–63. doi: 10.1056/NEJMra1602113 - DOI - PubMed
    1. World Health Organization. Zika virus and complications: 2016 Public Health Emergency of International Concern 2016 [cited 2021 February 25]. https://www.who.int/emergencies/zika-virus-tmp/en/.
    1. Song BH, Yun SI, Woolley M, Lee YM. Zika virus: History, epidemiology, transmission, and clinical presentation. J Neuroimmunol. 2017;308:50–64. doi: 10.1016/j.jneuroim.2017.03.001 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Sirohi D, Kuhn RJ. Zika Virus Structure, Maturation, and Receptors. J Infect Dis. 2017;216(suppl_10):S935–S44. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jix515 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types