Public Health and Preventive Medicine Vol. 2, No. 5, 2016, pp. 33-42 http://www.aiscience.org/journal/phpm ISSN: 2381-778X (Print); ISSN: 2381-7798 (Online) * Corresponding author E-mail address: zhossain@nccu.edu (Md. Z. Hossain) Advances in Zika Virus: Searching for the Missing Link Elizabeth A. Okong’o Odera, Joab Otieno Odera, Md. Zakir Hossain * Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise (BRITE), North Carolina Central University, North Carolina, USA Abstract The Zika virus (ZIKAV) is an emerging arbovirus of the Flaviviridae family with two main lineages; the African and the Asian lineages. It is an enveloped single stranded positive sense RNA virus of approximately 11kb. Scientists recently linked ZIKAV with a rare birth defect microcephaly characterized by small head and brain development and abnormalities. The brain damage in Zika babies is worse than the researchers initially anticipated. Researchers believe that ZIKAV prevents parts of the brain not yet formed from proper development, which might in the long run, be associated with severe abnormalities. No one knows how the babies survive, how well their brain develops and functions remains a mystery. There is no effective vaccine or proven specific therapeutic treatment for ZIKAV infection to date. The development of suitable therapeutic molecules and elucidating anti-viral agents against ZIKAV viral infection is therefore imperative, and a recent near-atomic resolution of a mature ZIKAV offers an opportunity to accelerate new research in this area. Thus, this review seeks to consolidate information from various scientific work carried out worldwide, and provide a clear and comprehensive outline of research and current issues needing further ZIKAV investigation. Keywords Zika Virus, Microcephaly, Symptoms, Testing, Treatments and Future Perspectives Received: June 7, 2016 / Accepted: June 28, 2016 / Published online: September 10, 2016 @ 2016 The Authors. Published by American Institute of Science. This Open Access article is under the CC BY license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 1. Introduction The World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the recent cluster of microcephaly cases and other neurological disorders reported in Brazil, following a similar cluster in French Polynesia in 2014, constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). This announcement was made following a convened Emergency Committee, under the International Health Regulations, to gather advice on the severity of the health threat associated with the continuing spread of ZIKAV disease in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Emergency Committee emphasized the need for a coordinated international response to improve surveillance, the detection of infections, congenital malformations, and neurological complications, to intensify the control of mosquito populations, and to expedite the development of diagnostic tests and vaccines to protect people at risk, especially during pregnancy [1]. With the coming up of the 2016 summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, there has been public concern, evidenced through wide media coverage, that ZIKAV may infect athletes and visitors to the games. The U.S. Olympic Committee announced that athletes who are concerned about Zika should consider skipping the games [2] and public health experts are concerned with that the virus may spread beyond Latin America. Updates from 1 January 2016 to 23 rd March 2016, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), reported no vector-borne cases of Zika