Zika Virus - Myths and Facts

After the successful World Cup football tournament in Brazil there was a unprecedented and unexplained spurt in the number of microcephaly cases in Brazil. Expert opinion is divided on the significance of this. International health agencies took cognizance of the problem and this led to the constitution of medical committees to analyse this phenomenon. After several rounds of debate the Expert Committee of World Health Organization came out with several documents that shed more light on the problem. These documents also gave clear guidelines on the approach to the problem and management. Recent guidelines aim at reducing the incidence of new cases. An expert team constituted by the IMA Research Cell examined this problem to advice its members on the various aspects of the problem after analysing the various published data on the problem. Keywords: Microcephaly, Zika virus, Modes of transmission, Confirmatory tests, Travel advisory, WHO guidelines