Switch-on the LAMP to spot Zika

Zika fever is caused by an arbovirus (a virus transmitted by insects) belonging to the Flavivirus genus of the Flaviviridae family, like dengue tick-borne encephalitis, west Nile virus and yellow fever, just to name a few. The insect vector of the disease is the female mosquito of Aedes aegypti, which originated in Africa. Aedes albopictus (A. albopictus) (the tiger mosquito from Asia) could also transmit the Zika virus, as it already does for dengue and Chikungunya virus, which is another arbovirus sharing similar vectors and geographical distribution with dengue and Zika virus. The Zika virus was detected for the first time in a monkey in Uganda in 1947.