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
. 2025 May 14;7(5):000857.v4.
doi: 10.1099/acmi.0.000857.v4. eCollection 2025.

Is the Zika virus re-emerging as a distinct genetic lineage in India?

Pradeep Kumar N  1 , Ajithlal P M  1 , Prasanta Saini  2 , Aiswarya R S  1 , Abidha Suresh  1 , Philip Samuel  3 , Balasubramaniam R  4 , Jessu Mathew  1 , Sonia T  1 , Amju K P  1 , Raju K H K  2 , Veerapathiran A  3 , Selvam A  3 , Balaji T  3 , Ashwani Kumar  2
Affiliations

Is the Zika virus re-emerging as a distinct genetic lineage in India?

Pradeep Kumar N et al. Access Microbiol. .

Abstract

An outbreak of Zika fever occurred in Thiruvananthapuram City, Kerala, India, during 2021. At the request of the Kerala state health administration, we investigated the same, towards proposing requisite containment strategies for the disease outbreak. Epidemiological investigations indicated a clustering pattern of Zika fever cases with the presumed index case from a multi-speciality hospital in the city. Preliminary reports on the same had been already reported elsewhere during 2021. Further, entomological surveys carried out evinced the predominant mosquito species in the city, viz. Aedes albopictus (65.55%), Aedes aegypti (22.0%) and Aedes vittatus (12.0%) were naturally infected with Zika virus (ZIKV), the minimum infection rates being 17.9, 7.8 and 3.6, respectively. Also, trans-ovarian transmission was recorded in both Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus. This is the first report on the detection of ZIKV from Ae. albopictus in India. Analysis of phylogenetically informative genes of the ZIKV genome indicated the emergence of a distinct lineage of the Asian strain of virus, with five unique non-synonymous mutations, viz. 'A22T' and 'I160M' (pre-membrane) and 'D348N', 'T470A' and 'V473L' (envelope), that were involved in the outbreak. The altered gene expression pattern and evolutionary implications of these unique mutations remain to be investigated. Genetic analysis of the virus isolates from this and other investigations carried out on sporadic outbreaks of ZIKV in the country subsequently indicated that ZIKV is re-emerging as a distinct genetic lineage in India. These findings and other recent reports on ZIKV outbreaks warrant an urgent need for a systematic countrywide surveillance strategy, towards the prevention/preparedness/containment of a massive outbreak of this emerging neurovirulent arboviral disease.

Keywords: Asian lineage; India; ZIKV; re-emerging diseases.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.. The study area (Thiruvananthapuram City Corporation) map and the distribution of the location of ZIKV-positive human cases recorded during 2021.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.. Species composition of mosquitoes collected during the Zika fever outbreak investigation in Thiruvananthapuram City, Kerala, India, during July–September 2021.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.. Phylogenetic analysis of (a) C-prM, (b) E and (c) -NS-5 gene sequences of ZIKV isolates from Thiruvananthapuram. Samples included in the Indian lineage are highlighted.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.. Graphical representation of the genome structural analysis of ZIKV of different lineages of the virus. Unique NS mutations are shown in red.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Dick GWA, Kitchen SF, Haddow AJ. Zika virus (I). Isolations and serological specificity. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. 1952;46:509–520. doi: 10.1016/0035-9203(52)90042-4. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Duffy MR, Chen T-H, Hancock WT, Powers AM, Kool JL, et al. Zika virus outbreak on Yap Island, federated states of Micronesia. N Engl J Med. 2009;360:2536–2543. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa0805715. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Tognarelli J, Ulloa S, Villagra E, Lagos J, Aguayo C, et al. A report on the outbreak of Zika virus on Easter Island, South Pacific, 2014. Arch Virol. 2016;161:665–668. doi: 10.1007/s00705-015-2695-5. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Marbán-Castro E, Enguita-Fernàndez C, Romero-Acosta KC, Arrieta GJ, Marín-Cos A, et al. “One feels anger to know there is no one to help us!”. Perceptions of mothers of children with Zika virus-associated microcephaly in Caribbean Colombia: a qualitative study. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2022;16:e0010328. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0010328. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Boyer S, Calvez E, Chouin-Carneiro T, Diallo D, Failloux A-B. An overview of mosquito vectors of Zika virus. Microbes Infect. 2018;20:646–660. doi: 10.1016/j.micinf.2018.01.006. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources