Natural Products Against the Zika Virus | Biomedgrid

The Zika virus belongs to the family Flaviviridae, which includes the well-known viruses associated with dengue, yellow fever, Nile fever in addition to the Japanese encephalitis virus. The discovery dates back to 1947 in Uganda, Africa, from an enzootic cycle between primates and wild Aedes aegypti, culminating in infections in humans [1]. In addition, sexual transmission of the infection may be a major concern in the spread of Zika [2]. It is said that Zika infection has been considered a serious threat to public health mainly due to the strong suspicions of its relationship with the development of microcephaly (affecting the development of fetuses of women infected during pregnancy and other congenital malformations)[3,4]. Other serious infections-related impairments may include neurological problems such as meningitis, myelitis, encephalitis and Guillain Barré syndrome [5,6]. The first and most concrete evidence on the increase in cases of microcephaly in Brazil was in 2014 and 2015 with a significant increase in 2016 where 8165 cases were reported, of which 1638 were diagnosed with microcephaly, as described in the epidemiological bulletin of Brazil [5]. In the description of probable cases of pregnant women infected with the Zika virus, 19,160 thousand cases were described mainly in the North, Midwest and Northeast regions of Brazil, this being the main suspect, responsible for microcephaly [7]. According to data, in Brazil, in 2018, 6,669 probable cases of Zika infection were registered, with two deaths reported and in the same period of 2019, 9,813 cases were counted and also two deaths. For pregnant women, 1649 cases were suspected of Zika infection with 447 confirmed cases (BRASIL,2019).