On May 7, 2015, the Pan American Health Organization issued an alert about potential Zika virus (ZIKV) transmission in northeast Brazil. 1 This has now been confirmed with wide spread of the disease, underscoring the potential for ZIKV to spread globally, similar to dengue (DENV) and chikungunya (CHIKV) viruses. ZIKV is an emerging arthropodborne virus (arbovirus) that was first isolated from a Rhesus monkey in Uganda, in 1947. This arbovirus is related to DENV and they have similar epidemiology and transmission cycle in urban environments. Until recently, only sporadic human ZIKV infections were reported. In 2007, ZIKV emerged outside of Asia and Africa for the first time and caused an epidemic on Yap Island in the Federated States of Micronesia, 2 which was followed by a large epidemic in French Polynesia in 2013–14. 3 Subsequently, ZIKV spread to several countries in Oceania (figure). 4