During a 2016-2017 Zika epidemic that spread across most of the Americas, very few cases were reported in Cuba. However, a team of 40 researchers led by FGCU biologists Sharon Isern and Scott Michael found that a delayed and unreported Zika outbreak was going strong in Cuba in 2017.
The team estimated that 5,707 Zika cases went unreported in Cuba in 2017. To get that number, they combined travel surveillance and sequence analyses of Zika virus genomes from infected travelers. “This approach could be used to track other future outbreaks,” says Isern. Why did the Cuban outbreak lag a year behind? The answer might be Cuba’s aggressive mosquito-control program.
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