A Doctoral Study: Association of Zika Virus with Congenital Anomalies

This doctoral study investigates the association between the Zika virus and congenital abnormalities, with a specific focus on Florida. It addresses research gaps by examining the virus's causative strains, incidence and prevalence rates, modes of transmission, and mortality rates. The study employs a quantitative approach, analyzing secondary data from various sources, including health organizations, educational institutions, and traveler data, to understand the role of Zika virus in congenital abnormalities. The research aims to improve awareness and prevention strategies, contributing to public health by forecasting the virus's outbreak and impact. Limitations include the study's geographic focus on Florida and reliance on secondary data, which may affect the generalizability and accuracy of the findings. The study uses surveillance data to understand the scope and impact of Zika virus.

Running head: DOCTORAL STUDY ON ZIKA VIRUS
DOCTORAL STUDY ON ZIKA VIRUS
ASSOCIATION OF ZIKA VIRUS WITH CONGENITAL ABNORMALITIES IN FLORIDA
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1DOCTORAL STUDY ON ZIKA VIRUS
Problem Statement:
The research activity regarding the outburst of Zika virus has been introduced after the
devastating anomalies in the infants and the newborns in America (Fauci & Morens, 2016). It
has become the health concern of the global population due to the association of the virus to
congenital abnormalities during pregnancy (Rather et al., 2017). Thus it is important to introduce
effective research in order to understand the natural history of the virus, mode of action, risk
factors related to the illness, effect of the virus on neurodevelopment, the interrelationship of
Zika virus with the infection caused by other arbovirus.
Various approaches have been introduced through effective study and research in order
to identify the how the infection causes by the virus and how can it cross the placenta of the
pregnant women. Several studies have been introduced to recognize the mode of transmission
(Desai et al., 2017). However, research has been indicated that the disease and infection caused
by the Zika virus is limited. The Pacific region and the United States are more susceptible to the
infection of the Zika virus. Most of the models available in the recent time help to fight the
diseases after reaching the epidemic situation (Rasmussen et al., 2016). There is lack of
interventions related to the forecast of the outbreak of the Zika virus, rate of transmission, types
of disease during pregnancy, effect on the infants and mortality rate. Thus, it is important to
introduce effective research in order to address the research gap of the previous studies. The
effective surveillance related to the association of Zika virus with congenital abnormalities
would help to resolve the research gap in an effective manner.

2DOCTORAL STUDY ON ZIKA VIRUS
Purpose of the Study:
The main purpose of the study is to identify the association of Zika virus with congenital
abnormality especially in Florida. The study would help to address the research gap through
effective surveillance and to understand the role of Zika virus in pregnancy related problem such
as occurrence of congenital abnormalities.
Significance
The study would help to address the research gap such as effective information related to
the association of Zika virus with congenital abnormalities, the strain related to the illness, mode
of transmission and mortality rate. The chosen population is Florida for the study as the
population is suffering from the birth defect since 1999 (Florida Department of Health, 2018).
Such information provided by the study would help to create awareness within the population
and understand the role of Zika virus in the illness in an effective manner. The result would help
to introduce effective strategies in order to fight against the illness caused by the Zika virus.
Thus, it would help to forecast important information related the emerging virus so that effective
prevention could be taken by the people, thus the study would bring a social change.
Background:
Infection caused by the Zika virus has become the concern of the world population. Zika
virus is a type of arbovirus from the family of Flavivirus that includes severe diseases causes
virus such as yellow fever, dengue, West Nile and Japanese encephalitis virus. The virus was
first discovered in Uganda from a sentinel monkey in 1947 (Weaver et al., 2016). Research has
been started regarding the virus after the disastrous outburst of the virus in America (Faria et al.,

3DOCTORAL STUDY ON ZIKA VIRUS
2016). The infection is transmitted through the bite of mosquitoes from Aedes family and sexual
transmission of the infection is also noted (Musso et al., 2015). Many researchers have found that
the virus is responsible for the anomalies and microcephaly in the newborns and study has been
done in order to identify the role of Zika virus in congenital abnormalities (Mlakar et al., 2016).
However the studies are effective after the illness reach the level of epidemic. Lack of
information and interventions related to forecast of the outbreak is also found. Thus, it is
important to conduct further study in order to identify the strain, mode of action, rate of infection
and mortality rate related to Zika virus. It is expected that the surveillance related to association
of Zika virus with congenital abnormalities would help to address the research gap in an
effective manner.
Conceptual Framework
The components of the surveillance will consider analysis of the data collected from
secondary sources, feedback from the health care organization, identify the cases of epidemic
and documentation of the laboratory and diagnosis report. The public health surveillance will
consider both the acute response and planned response in the study. The model will display the
way of sharing information and implementation of action regarding the study. The model of the
study will explain the methodology of the surveillance and the technique of detecting emerging
disease.
Research Questions:
The research questions are as follows-

4DOCTORAL STUDY ON ZIKA VIRUS
 What are the causative strains of the Zika virus associated with the congenital
strain?
 What is the incidence and prevalence rate in Florida related to congenital
abnormalities?
 What is the percentage of the population infected by the Zika virus?
 What is the mode of transmission of Zika virus?
 How can the virus cross the placenta of the pregnant women?
 What is the mortality rate due to congenital abnormality in Florida?
 What are the stages of the surveillance?
 How often data are collected from the population?
 What is the rate of traveler-associated with the congenital abnormalities due to
Zika virus infection in Florida?
Nature of the Study:
The research will use the following quantitative approaches-
 A depth analysis of strains of the Zika virus in order to identify the responsible
strain for the congenital abnormalities.
 Analyzing traveler data in order to understand the travel associated congenital
abnormalities.
 Diagnostic data of the patient with congenital abnormalities to understand the role
of Zika virus in congenital abnormalities and the mode of transmission.
 Data related to rate of infection and mortality rate to create awareness within the
population.

5DOCTORAL STUDY ON ZIKA VIRUS
Secondary Data Types and Sources of Information:
The secondary data for the study includes relevant articles, books, research paper on Zika
virus, social survey related to the infection caused by the Zika virus, traveler data and health
related data of Florida.
The source of secondary data includes-
 The American College of Healthcare Executives
 Agency for Health Care Research and Quality
 U.S. Department of Education
 US. Government open data access select health for health-related datasets
 SWAN – Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation
 WHO
 CDC
 Traveler data US Custom and Border Protection
 Pub med
Possible Analytical Strategies
Data need to be analyzed from the above source in order to achieve desired outcomes.
The data from the health care source would help to understand the rate of infection in the
population. The data from the educational sources would help to gather knowledge about the
Zika virus and different infections caused by the virus. The data from the survey is important in
order to understand the current scenario in the population. The diagnostic and laboratory reports

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would help to identify the strains. The relevant articles from the sources would help to recognize
the result of the previous research related to the Zika virus infection and help to improve the
study in an effective manner. Analyzing the data from the secondary resources is important in
order to develop the result and address the research gap through providing the answer of the
research questions.
Limitation of the study:
There are some limitations of the study that need be measured. One of such limitation is
the demography of the study. The research and data is limited to the population of Florida, thus,
result could not be similar for the world population. Another limitation is there is no primary
data source for the study that could restrict the people to accept the result. The cultural belief
could restrict the surveillance. The accuracy of the data collected from the secondary source is
another limitation of the research (Plourde & Bloch, 2016).

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References
Desai, S. K., Hartman, S. D., Jayarajan, S., Liu, S., & Gallicano, G. I. (2017). Zika Virus
(ZIKV): a review of proposed mechanisms of transmission and associated congenital
abnormalities. American journal of stem cells, 6(2), 13. Retrived from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5545216/
Faria, N. R., da Silva Azevedo, R. D. S., Kraemer, M. U., Souza, R., Cunha, M. S., Hill, S. C., ...
& Rocco, I. M. (2016). Zika virus in the Americas: early epidemiological and genetic
findings. Science, 352(6283), 345-349. Retrieved from
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6283/345
Fauci, A. S., & Morens, D. M. (2016). Zika virus in the Americas—yet another arbovirus
threat. New England Journal of Medicine, 374(7), 601-604. Retrieved from
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmp1600297
Florida Department of Health. (2018). Birth Defects | Retrieved from
http://www.floridahealth.gov/Diseases-and-Conditions/birth-defects/index.html
Mlakar, J., Korva, M., Tul, N., Popović, M., Poljšak-Prijatelj, M., Mraz, J., ... & Vizjak, A.
(2016). Zika virus associated with microcephaly. New England Journal of
Medicine, 374(10), 951-958. Retrieved from
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1600651
Musso, D., Roche, C., Robin, E., Nhan, T., Teissier, A., & Cao-Lormeau, V. M. (2015). Potential
sexual transmission of Zika virus. Emerging infectious diseases, 21(2), 359. Retrieved
from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4313657/

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Plourde, A. R., & Bloch, E. M. (2016). A literature review of Zika virus. Emerging infectious
diseases, 22(7), 1185. Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4918175/
Rasmussen, S. A., Jamieson, D. J., Honein, M. A., & Petersen, L. R. (2016). Zika virus and birth
defects—reviewing the evidence for causality. New England Journal of
Medicine, 374(20), 1981-1987. Retrieved from
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsr1604338
Rather, I. A., Lone, J. B., Bajpai, V. K., & Park, Y. H. (2017). Zika virus infection during
pregnancy and congenital abnormalities. Frontiers in microbiology, 8, 581. Retrieved
from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2017.00581/full
Weaver, S. C., Costa, F., Garcia-Blanco, M. A., Ko, A. I., Ribeiro, G. S., Saade, G., ... &
Vasilakis, N. (2016). Zika virus: History, emergence, biology, and prospects for
control. Antiviral research, 130, 69-80. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354216301206