ArticlePLoS biology2022
Enhanced mosquito vectorial capacity underlies the Cape Verde Zika epidemic.
Article in PLoS biology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global seroprevalence of Zika virus in asymptomatic individuals: A systematic review.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2024Pooled it
- Mitochondrial phylogeography and insecticide resistance of Aedes aegypti in Kenya.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
- Vector competence acrossJournal of virology · 2026Review
- Genetic divergence in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes potentially associated with enhanced capacity for arbovirus transmission.BMC biology · 2026Article
- Rapid urban evolution of the dengue mosquito in West African cities.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- A targeted amplicon sequencing panel for cost-effective high-throughput genotyping of Aedes aegypti.Parasites & vectors · 2026Article
- Vector competence of Aedes albopictus and Aedes aegypti from the islands of the Southwestern Indian Ocean for epidemic Zika, dengue, and chikungunya viruses.Parasites & vectors · 2025Article
- Polygenic viral factors enable efficient mosquito-borne transmission of African Zika virus.Nature communications · 2025Article
- A targeted amplicon sequencing panel for cost-effective high-throughput genotyping ofbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Adaptive genomic signatures of globally invasive populations of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegypti.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- The role of vector population variation and climate in Zika virus transmission patterns in Africa: a modelling study.The Lancet. Planetary health · 2024Article
- Extensive variation and strain-specificity in dengue virus susceptibility among African Aedes aegypti populations.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2024Article
- Extensive variation and strain-specificity in dengue virus susceptibility among AfricanbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Biology and Behaviour ofViruses · 2023Review
- Assessment of the Risk of Exotic Zika Virus Strain Transmission byTropical medicine and infectious disease · 2023Article
- Recovery of metagenomic data from theWellcome open research · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The explosive emergence of Zika virus (ZIKV) across the Pacific and Americas since 2007 was associated with hundreds of thousands of human cases and severe outcomes, including congenital microcephaly caused by ZIKV infection during pregnancy. Although ZIKV was first isolated in Uganda, Africa has so far been exempt from large-scale ZIKV epidemics, despite widespread susceptibility among African human populations. A possible explanation for this pattern is natural variation among populations of the primary vector of ZIKV, the mosquito Aedes aegypti. Globally invasive populations of Ae. aegypti outside of Africa are considered effective ZIKV vectors because they are human specialists with high intrinsic ZIKV susceptibility, whereas African populations of Ae. aegypti across the species' native range are predominantly generalists with low intrinsic ZIKV susceptibility, making them less likely to spread viruses in the human population. We test this idea by studying a notable exception to the patterns observed across most of Africa: Cape Verde experienced a large ZIKV outbreak in 2015 to 2016. We find that local Ae. aegypti in Cape Verde have substantial human-specialist ancestry, show a robust behavioral preference for human hosts, and exhibit increased susceptibility to ZIKV infection, consistent with a key role for variation among mosquito populations in ZIKV epidemiology. These findings suggest that similar human-specialist populations of Ae. aegypti in the nearby Sahel region of West Africa, which may be expanding in response to rapid urbanization, could serve as effective vectors for ZIKV in the future.
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