In 1953, the NIV had concluded in a paper that, "It seems certain that the Zika virus attacks human beings in India."
India has had a history of Zika virus attacks as early as in the 1950s, says a BBC report, citing a study conducted by the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune.
A team of experts from NIV had published a paper in 1953, after testing the exposure of Indians to 15 insect-borne diseases, one of which was by the Zika virus.
It was found that 'significant numbers' of people were exposed to the virus as early as in the 1950s, even before the first official case in humans was registered in Nigeria in 1954. Only thirty-three of the 196 people tested for the disease had immunity to it. The NIV had concluded in their paper that "It therefore seems certain that Zika virus attacks human beings in India."
However, the research team was not too concerned about Zika at the time as it was considered to be a mild condition resulting in just a fever and a slight rash, with no long term implications.
However, the threat from the virus has increased 'exponentially' now, enough for the WHO to declare it as an international public health emergency.
The Zika virus has no vaccine or cure yet and is linked to microcephaly in newborns and the Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare auto-immune disease affecting adults.
With mosquito-borne diseases such as Dengue and Malaria being widespread in the country, India needs to work out how it will prevent a similar outbreak of the Zika virus.
Meanwhile, stating that not a single case of Zika virus had been detected in India so far, the Centre on Monday said it will come out with guidelines to prevent the outbreak of the disease within the next 48 hours.
Union Health Minister J P Nadda, who chaired a high-level meeting on Monday on the issue, said that detailed discussions were held on the proposed guidelines for the Zika virus and based on the outcome of the emergency meet called by the World Health Organisation (WHO), India will issue the guidelines.
The WHO said last week that the Zika virus, transmitted by the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, was "spreading explosively" and could infect as many as four million people in the Americas. The Pan American Health Organization says Zika has spread in 24 nations and territories in the Americas.
This marks the fourth time the WHO has declared a global health emergency since such procedures were put in place in 2007, with the others arising from influenza, Ebola and polio.
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