فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

In medicine, the clinical spectrum of vector-borne dis-eases is an important issue. In particular, the colorectal in-volvement of these diseases has attracted much interest.In a previous publication, the interrelationship betweenthe dengue virus and colorectal disease was explored (1). Inthe present article, the author would like to highlight theimportance of investigating the relationship between Zikavirus infection and colorectal disease.Zika virus disease is an emerging vector-borne diseasepresently considered as a significant public health prob-lem. As a new disease, further clinical research on thiscondition is still required. To the best of our knowledge,the colorectal presentation of Zika virus infection is yet tobe reported. Nevertheless, it has already been ascertainedthat the Zika virus can infect the colorectal mucosa (2). Ina recent report by Li et al. the Zika virus was reported to beable to infect rectal mucosa, with this pathology being re-lated to the fecal shedding of the virus (2). The Zika viruscan also be detected using rectal swabs (3, 4); a recent re-port demonstrated that rectal swab samples led to positiveviral tests in 10% of patients infected with the Zika virus (4).Rectal infection with the Zika virus can explain the dis-ease transmission via homosexual contact, which is an im-portant mode of Zika virus infection (5). It can also im-ply the necessity for infection control during any medicalprocedure involving the colorectal area. Finally, it is an in-teresting research issue to follow up whether any clinicalproblems are caused by Zika virus infection at the colorec-tal mucosa