ZIKAction

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,

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

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

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

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,

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 20^th 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.

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

Published in: The Lancet

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,

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,

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.

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.

Registrations are now open for the international conference on Zika Virus to be held in Marseille, France, next June. The event – organized by the EU-funded ZIKAlliance project in collaboration with three other EU-funded Zika projects (ZikaPLAN, ZIKAction, and ZIKAVAX) and the European Society for Virology – will take place at the Faculty of Medicine La Timone. The event will provide an overview of the current status of Zika research – covering from basic to clinical research,

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

Published in: Expert 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.

On November 7^th, 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.

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.

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

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.

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.