The original isolation of the Zika virus (ZIKV), a Flavivirus member of the Flaviviridae family, was obtained in 1947 from the blood of a febrile rhesus monkey exposed at the Zika forest near Lake Victoria, in the outskirts of Entebbe, the capital of Uganda. 1 1 Dick GW, Kitchen SF, Haddow AJ. Zika virus I. Isolations and serological specificity. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. 1952; 46: 509-20. ZIKV was also isolated from wild mosquitoes in the same area and later periodic human febrile cases were attributed to ZIKV in Uganda and other countries in West and East Africa. Later, in the 1960s, ZIKV was detected in Asia and the virus was isolated from Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, initially in Malaysia and, subsequently, in several countries in Asia, showing that this arbovirus also occurred outside the African continent. 2 2 Marchette NJ, Garcia R, Rudnik A. Isolation of Zika virus from Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Malaysia. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 1969; 18: 411-5. This new facet of ZIKV, ie, ability to cause epidemic disease transmitted by Aedes aegypti, disclosed a new milestone in the epidemiology of this arbovirus infection. It was clear that ZIKV had managed to adapt to an old acquaintance of humans, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, transmitters of urban yellow fever, four serotypes of dengue fever, chikungunya virus, and other arboviruses in Asia and Africa.

Since the 1960s, sporadic cases of ZIKV infection have been reported in humans 3 3 Macnamara FN. Zika virus: a report on three cases of human infection during an epidemic of jaundice in Nigeria. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg. 1954; 48: 139-45.; due to its sporadic occurrence and low severity pattern, little importance was given to this arbovirus until a Zika fever epidemic occurred on Yap Island in the Republic of Micronesia in 2007, with the description of a rash febrile syndrome of mild intensity and a high percentage of asymptomatic cases. 4 4 Hayes EB. Zika virus outside Africa. Emerg Infect Dis. 2009; 15: 1347-50. This episode on Yap Island was followed by others, in the Pacific Ocean region of Polynesia and in some Southeast Asian countries, with outbreaks confirmed by serology or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the ZIKV on Easter Island, and in the Solomon Islands, the Cook Islands, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and French Polynesia. 5 5 Lanciotti RS, Kosoy OL, Laven JJ, Velez JO, Lambert AJ, Johnson AJ, et al. Genetic and serologic properties of Zika virus asso-ciated with an epidemic, Yap State, Micronesia, 2007. Emerg Infect. Dis. 2008; 14: 1232-9.