{"id":225475,"date":"2016-10-04T13:01:18","date_gmt":"2016-10-04T16:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/?p=225475"},"modified":"2016-10-04T13:27:02","modified_gmt":"2016-10-04T16:27:02","slug":"monkeys-with-zika","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/monkeys-with-zika\/","title":{"rendered":"Monkeys with Zika"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Victims

Danielle Araujo \/ Pasteur Institute and ICB\/USP<\/span>Victims of proximity: capuchin monkeys who live with humans were identified as having the Zika virusDanielle Araujo \/ Pasteur Institute and ICB\/USP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In five municipalities of the Brazilian state of Cear\u00e1, some at distances of nearly 300 kilometers apart, there are monkeys infected with the Zika virus.\u00a0 Researchers from S\u00e3o Paulo and Cear\u00e1 have identified the virus in samples of sera, oral mucosa and saliva from four marmoset and three bearded capuchin monkeys accustomed to interacting with humans in urban and rural areas of Fortaleza, Limoeiro do Norte, Quixer\u00e9, S\u00e3o Benedito and Guaraciaba do Norte.<\/p>\n

The seven infected animals represent 29% of the 24 monkeys whose biological material has been analyzed in recent months \u2013 nearly 30 other samples are to be tested in the coming weeks.\u00a0 \u201cThis is the first time the Zika virus has been found in New World primates,\u201d says biologist Silvana Favoretto, a researcher at the Pasteur Institute of S\u00e3o Paulo and the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (ICB-USP). Favoretto and six other researchers from S\u00e3o Paulo who are members of the Zika Network, a consortium of S\u00e3o Paulo laboratories investigating the virus, described the finding in a short article filed April 20, 2016 in the bioRxiv <\/i><\/em>repository.<\/p>\n

The Zika virus was first isolated in 1947 from the blood of a rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta<\/i><\/em>) monitored in a Uganda forest\u00a0\u00a0 to track circulation of the yellow fever virus. Rhesus monkeys (along with chimpanzees, gorillas and humans) belong to a group of primates called catarrhines, characterized by nostrils that are very close together and downward facing.<\/p>\n

The virus has now been found in Cear\u00e1 in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus<\/i><\/em>) and bearded capuchin (Sapajus libidinosus<\/i><\/em>), monkeys classified as platyrrhine\u2013primates characterized by nostrils open to the side.\u00a0 It is believed that platyrrhines and catarrhines shared a common ancestor between 37 million and 34 million years ago.\u00a0 After that, each group evolved separately.<\/p>\n

Identification of the Zika virus in primates of the Americas concerns matters of public health because of the risk that these animals could become what researchers call wild reservoirs of the virus.\u00a0 Once infected, they could keep the virus circulating in nature and, from time to time, go back to spreading it among humans \u2013 something similar to what happens with yellow fever in some regions of Brazil.<\/p>\n

For now, though, this is just an assumption.\u00a0 The Cear\u00e1 animals identified with the virus lived in close proximity to humans.\u00a0 Favoretto says that marmosets frequently visit the backyards of houses in Brazil\u2019s Northeast.\u00a0 It is also common for people to keep marmosets and bearded capuchins as pets.\u00a0 \u201cThese animals are docile as babies but become more unsociable and sometimes even aggressive as they grow up,\u201d she says.\u00a0 Because of this proximity, the researcher suspects that the monkeys were infected by mosquitoes that bit humans who had Zika.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is my main line of reasoning right now,\u201d says primatologist J\u00falio C\u00e9sar Bicca-Marques, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS). \u201cIf the virus is later found in wild animals that have no contact with humans, my understanding could change,\u201d says the researcher from Rio Grande do Sul, who years ago monitored an outbreak of wild yellow fever that affected howler monkeys in southern Brazil. Bicca-Marques says that at that time, people thought the monkeys were spreading the disease and began hunting them. Bicca-Marques and Favoretto now fear that the same type of pursuit will be directed towards the marmosets and bearded capuchins.\u00a0 \u201cOur findings show that wild animals should not be sheltered in backyards, but instead free in nature, where the chain of infections can occur without harming individuals,\u201d Favoretto says.<\/p>\n

Curiosity and luck<\/b><\/strong>
\nThe two researchers acknowledge that for now, close to nothing is known about how the Zika virus acts in non-human primates\u00a0 \u2013 especially New World primates. \u201cFor example, we don\u2019t know if, when they get sick, their offspring are born with microcephaly or how long the virus remains in their bodies,\u201d says Favoretto.\u00a0 She and veterinarian Danielle Araujo, her colleague at the Pasteur Institute and ICB-USP, found reduced concentrations of Zika in infected marmosets and capuchins.<\/p>\n

Identification of the virus in these animals occurred through a combination of curiosity and luck.\u00a0 At the ICB-USP, Favoretto heads up the Center for Rabies Research and has spent nearly two decades studying the disease in Cear\u00e1 in partnership with the state health department there.\u00a0 Caused by a virus that is highly lethal to humans, rabies has a wild cycle in that northeastern state where, as identified earlier by Favoretto, the marmoset is one of the reservoirs.<\/p>\n

In early 2016, when analyzing the distribution of cases of Zika and microcephaly in Cear\u00e1, the biologist verified that some of the cases coincided with areas from which samples of biological material from monkeys were being collected and she decided to test them for the presence of Zika.\u00a0 \u201cWe found positive samples for Zika in animals that lived along the coast, in the Caatinga scrubland and in the forested mountain region where vegetation is more dense,\u201d the researcher says. \u201cThis shows that there is widespread presence of the virus there.\u201d<\/p>\n

After detecting Zika in some of the samples, the genetic material of the virus was isolated and sequenced at the Clinical and Molecular Virology Laboratory of USP and analyzed by virologists Paolo Zanotto and Edison Durigon.\u00a0 The findings confirmed that the Zika found in the animals is the same as that infecting humans in Brazil that could lead to the birth of babies with neurological problems and abnormally small brains \u2013 from the end of 2015 through April 23, 2016, the Ministry of Health identified 1,198 cases of microcephaly, with the Zika virus detected in 194 of the cases.<\/p>\n

Favoretto plans to make additional expeditions to Cear\u00e1 in the near future, returning to the cities where the Zika-infected animals were identified to attempt to recapture them (they were tagged with microchips).\u00a0 If the monkeys continue to present copies of the virus in their bodies, it will be a sign that they can act as reservoirs.\u00a0 \u201cIf this turns out to be the case, the Zika virus will have definitely come to stay since it\u2019s difficult to eradicate diseases with wild reservoirs,\u201d Favoretto says.\u00a0 The most we\u2019ll be able to do is keep them under control,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Project<\/strong>
\nRabies in terrestrial wild fauna from the Northeast region of Brazil: molecular epidemiology and detection of immune response (n\u00ba 2014\/16333-1<\/a>); Grant Mechanism:<\/b><\/strong> Regular Research Grant; Principal Investigator:<\/b><\/strong> Silvana Regina Favoretto (Pasteur Institute); Investment:<\/b><\/strong> R$296,307.41.<\/p>\n

Scientific article<\/em>
\nFAVORETTO, S. et al.<\/em> First detection of Zika virus in neotropical primates in Brazil: a possible new reservoir<\/a>. BioRxiv<\/b><\/strong>. April 20, 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zika virus was found in monkeys accustomed to the presence of humans","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[209,242,260],"coauthors":[105],"class_list":["post-225475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-biology","tag-immunology","tag-public-health"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225475"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=225475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}