A comparison study of Zika virus outbreaks in French Polynesia, Colombia and the State of Bahia in Brazil

Abstract

Zika virus (ZIKV) disease outbreaks occurred in French Polynesia in 2013–2014 and in Brazil and Colombia in 2015–2016, respectively. Using our recently developed ZIKV disease model, we simulated the reported ZIKV infection cases from French Polynesia, Colombia and the State of Bahia of Brazil. Moreover, we estimated that the infection attack rates were 78.0% (95% confidence interval (CI): 63.5–86.3%) in French Polynesia which closely matches a previous serological study; 20.8% (95% CI: 1.1–50.0%) in Colombia which suggests that the attack rate was most likely less than 50%; and 32.4% (95% CI: 2.5–94.2%) in the State of Bahia in Brazil which suggests that the attack rate is unidentifiable with monthly data in Bahia. Furthermore, we found that the association of precipitation and ZIKV outbreak was more evident in Colombia than the other two places. These results are helpful for us to understand the possible evolution, to control the on-going outbreaks, to prevent the potential geographic spread, and to study the ecological and epidemiological characteristics of ZIKV.