Zika virus, a viral relative of yellow fever, West Nile and dengue fever, was first classified in 1947 within rhesus monkeys in Uganda. Named after the forest in which it was first discovered, in 1952, this virus was first observed in humans.  According to a 2015 article in the Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases by researchers from the University of Bahia (Brazil), outbreaks of Zika are not a new scenario for many parts of the world. In fact, over the course of 2007-2014, multiple outbreaks were known to have occurred in countries across the Asian-Pacific and Western Hemisphere. In February of 2016 however, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international public health emergency. According to a statement by the WHO, Zika is spreading “explosively.” In the same statement, the WHO expressed that the level of concern over this public health emergency is “extremely high.” Since 2007, a total of 61 countries have reported transmission of the virus. During the next 12 months, the World Health Organization estimates that millions more cases will arise within the Americas.

Back in 2004 I met a crusty, disheveled man in our memory disorder clinic (West Florida Hospital Memory Disorder Clinic in Pensacola). His wife had called our clinic and asked for help dealing with his bizarre behavior. She told me about him locking her out of the bedroom and telling her to leave before his wife came home. He wouldn’t let her help him bathe or dress. She needed a wheelchair to get around. He drove and she navigated their car. She told me how he wanted to talk nonsense. “He does not know who I am and tells me to get out of our own home,” she said. His wife could not understand how that man had forgotten who she was. After all, they had been married 43 years.