TY - JOUR T1 - ZIKA - How Fast Does This Virus Mutate ? JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/040303 SP - 040303 AU - Ian Logan Y1 - 2016/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/02/19/040303.abstract N2 - The World Health Organisation has declared the present epidemic of infection with the Zika virus to be a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern’. The virus appears to have spread from Thailand to French Polynesia in 2013, and has since infected over a million people in the countries of South and Central America. In most cases the infection is mild and transient, but the virus does appear to be strongly neurotropic and cause both birth defects in foetuses and Guillain-Barré syndrome in some adults.One of the results of the rapidly increasing importance of the Zika virus is that a significant amount of RNA sequence data of the viral genome has appeared in the public domain and is available for scrutiny by scientists and physicians who might not normally consider studying the genetics of a virus. In this paper the techniques and utilities developed in the study of mitochondrial DNA are applied to the Zika virus.As a result it is possible to show in a simple manner how a phylogenetic tree may be constructed and how the mutation rate of the virus can be measured. The study shows the mutation rate to be about 10 bases a year, in a viral genome of 10,272 bases. This rapid mutation rate will enable the geographic spread of the epidemic to be monitored easily and may also prove useful in assisting the identification of preventative measures that are working, and those which are not.Whether any of the mutations seen in the present epidemic affect the virulence and behaviour of the virus is uncertain. But there is no clear evidence to show that changes in the viral genome are affecting the pattern of the epidemic. However, it is possible that the foetal damage and Guillain-Barré may be the consequences of the initial viraemia that follows a bite from a mosquito carrying the Zika virus. ER -