The Social Context of the Emergence of Vector-Borne Diseases

The Brazilian strain of Zika virus (ZIKV-BR) is one of several recently emergent or reemergent vector-borne human infections, pathogens transmitted by the bite of an infected arthropod species (Dick et al. 1952; Kindhauser et al. 2016; Wilder-Smith et al. 2017). The new Zika strain is transmitted, as are other major arboviruses, by Aedes spp. mosquitoes, with some debate as to whether other mosquito genera can transmit the virus (Ayres 2016; Fernandes et al. 2016; Evans et al. 2017; Hunter 2017). Its progenitor appears to have originated in Senegal and Coˆte d’Ivoire before spreading across Asia and more recently, and explosively, South and Central America (Musso 2015; Shen et al. 2016; Faria et al. 2017). Suitable New World niches extend beyond areas struck so far (Messina et al. 2016; Attaway et al. 2017) (Fig. 1.1).