Zika vaccine candidates progress through nonclinical development and enter clinical trials

Zika virus (ZIKV), a mosquito-borne flavivirus, was first identified in the 1940s in Africa, emerged in the Americas in Brazil in May 2015, with evidence that supports a causal role for this virus in a range of clinical disease presentations, collectively termed Zika congenital syndrome (ZCS), including identification of the virus in the brains of children who were still-born with microcephaly. Subsequently, the virus rapidly spread through the Americas with at least 47 countries and territories reporting clinical cases. As one might expect, many research groups in government, academia, industry, and non-governmental organizations have applied their expertise to investigating ZIKV. Prior to 2015, there had been little research on ZIKV as it was not considered to be a major pathogen and there was little existing expertise on the virus. Extraordinary progress has been made over the last year with nearly 1000 publications reporting investigations on the virus and the different clinical syndromes, demonstrating not only the excellent toolbox available to scientists today but also the speed with which multi-authors/multi-institutions can work together.