Two cases of Zika fever imported from French Polynesia to Japan, December 2013 to January 2014

Abstract

We report two cases of Zika fever in Japan, which were imported from French Polynesia, where on 6 November 2013 public health authorities reported an outbreak of subfebrile illness with rash due to Zika virus (ZIKV). The epidemic started spreading across the archipelago beginning in week 41 of 2013 [1]. During weeks 42 to 52, the syndromic surveillance network reported 6,630 suspected ZIKV infection cases to the Bureau de Veille Sanitaire. About 500 of these cases were tested at the Institute Louis Malarde laboratory in Papeete for confirmation; 333 were confirmed by real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) as ZIKV infections [2]. The outbreak is currently ongoing and as of 13 January 2014, 361 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported [3]. Symptoms of most ZIKV infection cases are mild and self-limited (mean duration of symptoms is 3–6 days). No hospitalisations for acute infection have been reported.