I have the sense that Zika is behaving like a bacteriophage. I believe it is acting in tandem with Wolbachia targeting the gonads.

Zika is supported 99 percent within the clade shared along with West Nile and St. Louis encephalitis viruses (even though the CDC lumps Zika in with hemorrhagic diseases like dengue and yellow fever).

Culex mosquitoes in Brazil and China are spreading Zika (which means birds are likely reservoir hosts). These are locations where Wolbachia-infected Aedes mosquito releases have been carried out.

The presence of a virus facilitates the invasion of Wolbachia (Straub and Telschow, 2015).

What is likely happening: Wolbachia enters the food chain (unnaturally) from the copepod Mesocyclops longisetus (which prefers to eat Aedes larvae) to small planktivorous fish and sand eels; to terns, gulls, and larger planktivorous fish (such as herring); and so on.

When these fish or birds die, the Wolbachia can live on in them for (at least) a week. West Nile virus (very similar to Zika) can live 5 days in a dead host. This, I feel, is ample time for Culex mosquitoes to acquire Wolbachia and/or Zika.

Given their vertical transmission through the female germline and their reproductive manipulations, Wolbachia are expected to reside primarily in the host reproductive tissues (Zug and Hammerstein, 2015).

My point: If the Zika virus is hitching a ride with Wolbachia, then it will follow it to the human reproductive system.

I've heard the argument that mammals are "too warm" for Wolbachia to survive but the testes are outside the inner core (to remain cooler). Not only that, Wolbachia is the bacteria emitted by roundworms responsible for river blindness and filariasis. So, once introduced into the blood stream, obviously Wolbachia can thrive.

Furthermore, UC San Francisco researchers have identified fetal brain tissue cells that are targeted by the Zika virus and determined that azithromycin, a common antibiotic regarded as safe for use during pregnancy, can prevent the virus from infecting these cells.

As you know, antibiotics work on bacteria, not viruses (re: Wolbachia).

My latest post:
More Proof: Wolbachia-Infected Mosquito Releases Might Be Causing the Most Devastating Zika Infections

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