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Parasites & Vectors, 15 December 2017
Stéphanie Silva Campos, Rosilainy Surubi Fernandes, Alexandre Araujo Cunha dos Santos, Rafaella Moraes de Miranda, Erich Loza Telleria, Anielly Ferreira-de-Brito, Marcia Gonçalves de Castro, Anna-Bella Failloux, Myrna C. Bonaldo and Ricardo Lourenço-de-Oliveira
Summary
Alternative transmission routes have been described for Zika virus (ZIKV). Here, we assessed for the first time the venereal transmission of ZIKV between Aedes aegypti under laboratory conditions. Orally-infected mosquito females were able to transmit the virus to males venereally, and males inoculated intrathoracically were capable of infecting females during mating. The genome of venereally-transmitted virus recovered from males was identical to that of ZIKV ingested by mated females. We conclude that venereal transmission between Aedes mosquitoes might contribute to Zika virus maintenance in nature.
https://parasitesandvectors.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13071-017-2543-4