About This Site

Zika Virus is an emerging infectious disease with potential of rapid spread to new areas where the vector Aedes mosquito is present.

The aim of this website is to provide a platform for sharing and developing research priorities, protocols and data capture systems alongside the latest epidemiological and clinical management information about Zika infection.

Clinical Research is the assessment of biomedical or health-related outcomes that are either observational or interventional and where the intent of collecting these data is to derive generalizable new knowledge.

During an outbreak of an emerging, little-studied disease, it is important to learn about the disease as quickly as possible in order to understand how best to manage individual cases and to develop a strategic public health plan to control the outbreak. Research data is needed to understand the pathogen and identify and prioritise potential clinical, diagnostic and epidemiological interventions capable of stopping the spread of the outbreak, or treating the symptoms of infected patients. The most promising priority interventions should then be evaluated in a rigourous, safe and ethical clinical trial.

Clinical research requires consent from the patients and is conducted according to specific protocols that need to be approved before use by research ethics review committees.

There is a very key transition from the act of collecting clinical information to make decisions and manage individual patients to using this data for the purposes of medical research that is planned for publication, wide dissemination or therapeutic product development. Specific ethical and regulatory approvals may be required before data can be collected for research, and so it is important to fulfil these requirements as early as possible, or even before an outbreak occurs, in order to learn as quickly as possible how to manage, contain and eventually treat this disease.

As Zika virus spread to more countries in the Americas in late 2015, there was a recognised need for a trusted and reliable platform for the coordination of research, and the dissemination of accurate epidemiological and clinical information about this disease. As such, this site aims to provide up to date resources in order to understand, manage and contain Zika virus and to inform healthcare professionals of guidelines and newly discovered information. It is also designed to enable the sharing of research tools, standardised datasets and practices with the aim of supporting the collection of research data as quickly and as effectively as possible. 

For further information, questions and contributions please contact: zikainfection@tghn.org