Zika virus, like all other viruses, is mutating

Not long after the appearance of an outbreak of viral disease, first scientists, and then newswriters, blame it all on mutation of the virus. It happened during the Ebolavirus outbreak in West Africa, and now it’s happening with Zika virus. The latest example is by parasitologist Peter Hotez, who writes in the New York Times: There are many theories for Zika’s rapid rise, but the most plausible is that the virus mutated from an African to a pandemic strain a decade or more ago and then spread east across the Pacific from Micronesia and French Polynesia, until it struck Brazil. After its discovery in 1947 in Uganda, Zika virus caused few human infections until the 2007 outbreak on Yap Island. The virus responsible for this and subsequent outbreaks in Pacific Islands is distinct from the African genotype, but there is no experimental evidence to suggest that sequence differences in the Asian genotype were responsible for the spread of the virus. For this reason I disagree with Dr. Hotez’ conclusion that mutation of the virus is the ‘most plausible’ explanation for its global spread. It is just as likely that the virus was in the right place at the right time to spark an outbreak in the Pacific. We will never have experimental evidence that emergence of the Asian genotype allowed pandemic spread of Zika virus, because we cannot test the effect of individual mutations on spread of the virus in humans. Consider this experiment: infect a room of humans ...
Source: virology blog - Category: Virology Authors: Tags: Basic virology Commentary Information genome microcephaly mutation pandemic transmission viral virulence virus viruses zika virus Source Type: blogs