New 2016 MeSH Headings: Zika Virus Infection and Zika Virus

On January 27, 2016, two new MeSH headings were added to the 2016 MeSH Browser in response to increased reports in the literature about the Zika virus outbreak and its tentative association with microcephaly in newborns as well as possible paralysis and Guillain-Barre Syndrome in adults:

• Zika Virus Infection
• Zika Virus

The terms also appeared in the MeSH export file available to licensees on January 27, 2016.

Indexing for the new headings began January 28, 2016.

In addition, NLM Indexing staff will review citations previously indexed on this topic to determine if the new headings should be applied to the citations.

Here is a suggested interim PubMed search strategy to retrieve citations on Zika until the review of previously indexed citations is completed:

Zika [tiab]

Using the [tiab] search tag finds citations that have already been indexed with MeSH or are still in process. The tag restricts retrieval to the article title, abstract, or author keyword fields and prevents false drops from other fields such as author name.

A Zika Virus Health Information Resources page, from the Disaster Information Management Research Center at NLM, gathers resources on the emerging health issues arising from the Zika Virus. For additional information see the article, NLM Disaster Information Management Research Center Resource List Updates.