Epidemiology in the News: Incidence and Prevalence of the Zika Virus Healy (2016) reports in the L.A. Times that scientists are currently pursuing five strategies of dealing with the Zika virus. Before reporting on these strategies, Healy provide an epidemiology of the virus, beginning with its first reported incidence in 1947 in Uganda. From Africa, Healy shows that the virus spread to Asia and the Americas. Connected to the spread of the disease is the concern of "whether cases of microcephaly followed in its wake but were undetected at the time" (Healy, 2016). To determine the connection of microcephaly to Zika, the island of Yap was studied by epidemiologists, who noted that in 2007 "between 68% and 88% of residents over the age of 2 were infected with the virus" (Healy, 2016).

Yap provides a useful means of studying the disease because island nations such as Yap, which are small and isolated, allow researchers an opportunity to see how a virus like Zika interacts with persons over time. Thus, the effects of the virus can be studied with an almost control-like view. However, just because there is no indication of incidence of microcephaly doesn't mean that there is no connection -- it could just indicate that...

Today's manifestations and the correlations between them and microcephaly are noted in the popular media but epidemiologists are uncertain whether there is a correlation or not because the data that is available on Zika is not enough to…