Since its discovery in 1947 in Uganda, the Zika virus (ZIKV) remained in the shadows emerging in 2007 in Micronesia, where hundreds of dengue-like syndromes were reported. Then, in 2013-2014, it was rife in French Polynesia, where the first neurological effects were observed. More recently, its arrival in Brazil was accompanied by an unusually high number of children with microcephaly born to mothers infected with ZIKV during the first trimester of pregnancy. In 2016, the World Health Organization declared ZIKV infection to be a public health emergency and now talks about a ZIKV pandemic. This review aims to summarize the current knowledge about ZIKV infection, successively addressing its transmission, epidemiology, clinical aspects, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention before discussing some perspectives.
Keywords: Arbovirus; Exanthema; Flavivirus; Zika; Zika fever; microcephaly.