Where does Zika virus occur? Zika virus occurs in tropical areas with large mosquito populations, and is known to circulate in Africa, the Americas, Southern Asia and Western Pacific. Zika virus was discovered in 1947, but for many years only sporadic human cases were detected in Africa and Southern Asia. In 2007, the first documented outbreak of Zika virus disease occurred in the Pacific.
Since 2013, cases and outbreaks of the disease have been reported from the Western Pacific, the Americas and Africa. Given the expansion of environments where mosquitoes can live and breed, facilitated by urbanisation and globalisation, there is potential for major urban epidemics of Zika virus disease to occur globally. How do people catch Zika virus? People catch Zika virus by being bitten by an infected Aedes mosquito – the same type of mosquito that spreads dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever.…
