Duration of Zika Viremia in Serum

Abstract

Here, we prospectively assessed Zika virus RNA persistence by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction in the serum of 38 infected- patients at restricted time intervals from onset of symptoms until virus clearance. The minimum and maximum Zika virus RNA clearance time observed in our cohort were 3 and 16 days after symptoms onset, respectively. Median time from symptoms onset to Zika virus RNA clearance in serum was similar with both models; 5 days (95% confidence interval [CI] 4 days, 6 days) using the nonparametric Kaplan-Meier method and 4.8 days (95% CI 4.1 days, 5.6 days) using parametric AFT regression (Figure 1). According to the AFT regression, 95% of symptomatic patients would experience a Zika RNA clearance after 10.8 days (95% CI 9.3 days, 12.6 days) post symptoms onset. No viral load nor sex effect were observed on time to Zika RNA clearance (P = .68 and P = .45, log-rank test).

Publication
In Clinical Infectious Diseases.