Zika: surveillance, risk factors and vector management in Brazil

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Rapid developments in Zika virus surveillance, risk factor analysis and optimal control
strategy are immediately required to curtail the American outbreak. Since 2012, our Brazilian
partner has been leading an arbovirus serosurveillance cohort study of 117 pregnant women
and 278 infants in a favela of Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro; and we will be piggybacking CI
Brasil's study for the currently proposed project. Half the requested funds will be transferred
to Brazil to support the PCR-confirmation of 181 suspected Zika cases among the cohort (in
addition to any suspected cases that arise over the next 18 months). PCR analysis will also
be conducted on mosquito samples collected from the households of febrile cases and their
neighbours. All collected mosquitoes of all species have been retained over the past 2 years
and stored appropriately for this follow-up analysis. This will allow for the incrimination of the
vector species that is/are primarily responsible for Zika transmission – a critical current
knowledge gap. Taking advantage of the years of collected data on the cohort
(socioeconomics, georeferenced locations, febrile history, mosquito numbers/species
collected, etc) coupled with the new diagnostic results, risk factor analysis will be conducted
using cutting-edge Model Based Geostatistical methods in order to produce the first Zika risk
maps for (primarily) Rio and (secondarily) Brazil. These data and risk factors will then inform
the construction of mathematical models developed to analyse optimal mosquito control
strategy employing both traditional tools (insecticides, breeding site elimination) and novel
approaches (sterile insect technique, genetic control and Wolbachia releases).