ZIKAction

ZIKAction paediatric registry: maternal characteristics and clinical, radiological, and follow-up features of children born with congenital zika infection in brazil

2022

Background: In 2015, Brazil experienced an unexpected increase in newborns with microcephaly. Subsequently, the association between microcephaly and Congenital Zika Infection (CZI) was confirmed.

Aims: This study, part of the ZIKAction Paediatric Registry, intends to describe clinical, radiological, neurodevelopmental, and laboratory features and follow-up of children with CZI in Bahia, Brazil.

Methods: This observational study had following inclusion criteria: intrauterine exposure to ZIKV,

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Detection of Potential Arbovirus Infections and Pregnancy Complications in Pregnant Women in Jamaica Using a Smartphone App (ZIKApp): Pilot Evaluation Study

2022

Authors: Ruiz-Burga E, Bruijning-Verhagen P, Palmer P, Sandcroft A, Fernandes G, de Hoog M, Bryan L, Pierre R, Bailey H, Giaquinto C, Thorne C, Christie CDC, ZIKAction Consortium

Published in: JMIR Formative Research

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Severity and Outcomes of Dengue in Hospitalized Jamaican Children in 2018–2019 During an Epidemic Surge in the Americas

2022

Authors: A Lue, M Richards-Dawson, G Gordon-Strachan, S Kodilinye, J Dunkley Thompson, T James-Powell, C Pryce, C Mears, J Anzinger, K Webster-Kerr and C Christie

Published in: Frontiers in Medicine

 

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Causes of Microcephaly in the Zika Era in Argentina: A Retrospective Study

2021

Authors: G Berberian, R Bologna, MG Pérez, A Mangano, PhD, M Costa, MSc, S Calligaris, MA Morales, C Rugilo, E Ruiz-Burga, C Thorne

Published in: Sage Journals

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The use of mobile technologies for early detection of arbovirus infections in pregnancy

2021

The great expansion of mobile technology across the globe has facilitated the use of smartphone applications to improve health systems and engage people in public health processes. This approach has been specially applied in low and middle income countries where capitalizing on the ubiquity of mobile technology infrastructure can help to overcome widespread health system barriers such as health personnel shortages, cost of health service, and transportation. Mobile health (mHealth) is a growing field with several applications in maternal and child health programmes dedicated to health monitoring,

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ZIKAction research in the face of COVID-19

2021

A recollection by Isadora Siqueira, Chief Investigator of the Paediatric Registry Study, on how the ZIKAction team in Brazil adapted to the challenges brought on by COVID-19 in order to carry on with their research and recruitment into the paediatric study.

What impact has the COVID-19 pandemic had on ZIKAction’s study activities and what solutions has your site identified to cope with it?  

Brazil is one of the countries most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and as of March 20th 2021,

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ZIKAHOST study shares findings on genetic predisposition to typical ZIKA effects at SEIP 2021

2021

The ZIKAHOST study aims to describe the Zika virus (ZIKV) infection taking into account the host, in this case humans, instead of the pathogen, which would be the zika virus, and we search for biomarkers of the increased likelihood of developing the disease, diagnosis and prognosis through a genomic approach. What this means is that we look at DNA to see if we could understand if patients can be genetically predisposed to develop typical ZIKV effects.

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Vertical transmission of Zika virus and its outcomes: a Bayesian synthesis of prospective studies

2020

Authors: A E Ades, Antoni Soriano-Arandes, Ana Alarcon, Francesco Bonfante, Claire Thorne, Catherine S Peckham, Carlo Giaquinto

Published in: The Lancet

Abstract
Background:  Prospective studies of Zika virus in pregnancy have reported rates of congenital Zika syndrome and other adverse outcomes by trimester. However, Zika virus can infect and damage the fetus early in utero,

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Genomic and epidemiological surveillance of Zika virus in the Amazon region

2020

Authors: Giovanetti M, Faria NR, Lourenco J, et al.

Published in:  Cell Rep. 2020;30(7):2275-2283

Abstract Zika virus (ZIKV) has caused an explosive epidemic linked to severe clinical outcomes in the Americas. As of June 2018, 4,929 ZIKV suspected infections and 46 congenital syndrome cases had been reported in Manaus,

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ZIKAction at 3rd International Conference on Zika Virus and Aedes related infections

2020

ZIKAction Consortium will be presenting preliminary results of its vertical transmission study at the 3rd International Conference on Zika Virus and Aedes related infections that will be held in Washington DC, USA, from 13th to 16th February 2020.

The conference aims to bring together physicians, public health practitioners and researchers to address challenges that Zika and Aedes related infections pose around the globe and try to fill knowledge gaps that still remain,

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ZikAction Consortium Meeting to take place in Guayaquil, 8-9 November 2019

2019

On 8-9 November the annual ZIKAction Consortium meeting will be held in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Around 40 researchers, health professionals and project managers from partner organizations are planning to participate in the meeting which aims at overviewing the ongoing project studies, their outcomes and setting goals for the upcoming year. The results of various studies, urgent issues and project management area updates will be presented and discussed during various sessions of the meeting.

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Minor groove binder modification of widely used TaqMan hydrolysis probe for detection of dengue virus reduces risk of false-negative real-time PCR results for serotype 4

2019

Authors: Gray ER, Heaney J, Ferns RB, Sequeira PC, Nastouli E, Garson JA

Published in: J Virol Methods. 2019;268:17-23

Abstract Dengue is a vector-transmitted viral infection that is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in humans worldwide, with over 50 million apparent cases and a fatality rate of 2.5 % of 0.5 million severe cases per annum in recent years.

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What we know and what we don’t know about perinatal Zika virus infection: a systematic review

2018

Authors: Soriano-Arandes A, Rivero-Calle I, Nastouli E, et al.

Published inExpert Rev Anti Infect Ther. 2018;16(3):243-254

Introduction: Zika virus (ZIKV) infection has caused the most challenging worldwide infectious epidemic outbreak in recent months. ZIKV causes microcephaly and other congenital malformations. There is a need to perform updated systematic reviews on ZIKV infection periodically because this epidemic is bringing up new evidence with extraordinary speed.

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ZIKAction: approval of the Congenital Microcephaly Case-Control Study protocol

2017

On November 7th, 2017, the Ethics Committee of the Universidad Central del Ecuador formally approved the ZIKAction Congenital Microcephaly Case-Control Study protocol. This prospective study, focused on estimating the risk of congenital microcephaly associated with Zika virus, dengue or chikungunya infection, will be led by Dra. Greta Miño from Hospital del Niño Francisco Icaza Bustamante of Guayaquil and Dr. Toni Soriano from University Hospital Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona as co-lead of the ZIKA-PED work package.

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Great news from Gainesville, FL (US): the 2° Consortium meeting of our ZIKAction project was a success!

2017

On November 2nd-3rd, the ZIKAction Consortium met for its annual general meeting, which was held at the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida.

About 70 scientists from 18 countries attended this two-day meeting, which was an outstanding opportunity to assess the work done so far and to explore future perspective for collaboration.

It was memorable to have Mario Monti, Former EU Commissioner and Prime Minister of Italy between 2011-2013 among our speakers.

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The ZIKAction Kick-Off Meeting was a success!

2016

The ZIKAction Kick-Off Meeting was held in Kingston, Jamaica at the University of West Indies from October 30th to November 1st.

zikactionkomphoto

Thank you all for coming!!

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 734857.

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PENTA Foundation coordinated ZIKAction consortium

2016

PENTA Foundation coordinated ZIKAction consortium awarded €7 million EU H2020 grant to combat Zika virus and other emerging infectious disease outbreaks

The ZIKAction consortium (Preparedness, research and action network on maternal-paediatric axis of Zika virus infection in Latin America and the Caribbean), coordinated by the PENTA Foundation, is set to receive a €7 million, five-year grant from the European Union through the Horizon 2020 programme’s recent call for research to combat Zika virus (ZIKV) and other emerging infections transmitted by mosquitoes in Latin America.

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Adherence to antiretroviral therapy and acceptability of planned treatment interruptions in HIV-infected children

2013

Authors: Harrison L, Ananworanich J, Hamadache D, et al; on Behalf of the Paediatric European Network for Treatment of AIDS (PENTA) 11 Trial Team

Published in: AIDS Behav. 2013;17(1):193-202.

Abstract There have been no paediatric randomised trials describing the effect of planned treatment interruptions (PTIs) of antiretroviral therapy (ART) on adherence, or evaluating acceptability of such a strategy.

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