Zika virus (ZIKV), chikungunya virus (CHIKV), and dengue virus (DENV) have been associated with clinical presentations that involve acute neurological complaints. In the current study, we identified ZIKV, CHIKV, and DENV in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from patients admitted to the Hospital Luis Vernaza (Guayaquil, Ecuador) to the Emergency Room or the Intensive Care Unit, with neurological symptoms and/or concern for acute arboviral infections. Viral RNA from one or more virus was detected in 12/16 patients. Six patients were diagnosed with meningitis or encephalitis, three with Guillain–Barré Syndrome, and one with CNS vasculitis. Two additional patients had a systemic febrile illness including headache that prompted testing of CSF. Two patients, who were diagnosed with encephalitis and meningoencephalitis, died during their hospitalizations. These cases demonstrate the breadth and significance of neurological manifestations associated with ZIKV, CHIKV, and DENV infections.

Zika virus (ZIKV) and chikungunya virus (CHIKV) cocirculate throughout much of the tropical Western Hemisphere; however, few cases of coinfection with these two pathogens have been reported. Herein, we describe three cases of ZIKV-CHIKV coinfection detected at a single center in Ecuador: a patient who developed symptoms on postoperative day 5 from an orthopedic procedure, a woman who had traveled to Ecuador for fertility treatment, and a woman who was admitted for Guillain-Barré syndrome and had ZIKV and CHIKV detected in serum and cerebrospinal fluid. All cases were diagnosed using a multiplex real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, and ZIKV viremia was detected as late as 16 days after symptom onset. These cases demonstrate the varied clinical presentation of ZIKV-CHIKV coinfections as well as the importance of multiplexed arboviral testing for these pathogens.

We determined the feasibility of human papillomavirus (HPV) detection in cervical exfoliated cells collected as dry swab samples. Both dry cervical swab and specimen transport medium (STM) cervical swab samples were collected from 135 patients attending either colposcopy or women's clinics in Guayaquil, Ecuador, who had a cytology diagnosis within 6 months. HPV was detected by dot blot hybridization and genotyped by the liquid bead microarray assay (LBMA). Overall, 23.1% of dry samples were positive for any high-risk HPV types, and 24.6% of STM samples were positive for any high-risk HPV types. Of 125 paired samples, the type-specific high-risk HPV proportion positive agreement was 60.7% (kappa, 0.69; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.53 to 0.82). Of six women with cytological evidence of invasive cervical cancer, high-risk HPV DNA was detected in three of their STM samples and in five of their dry samples. Dry samples were more likely to be insufficient for HPV testing than STM samples. Consistent with this observation, the amount of genomic DNA quantitated with the ␤-actin gene was almost 20 times lower in dry samples than in STM samples when detected by the real-time TaqMan assay; however, HPV DNA viral loads in dry samples were only 1.6 times lower than those in matched STM samples. We concluded that exfoliated cervical cells could be collected as dry swab samples for HPV detection.Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection causes warts and various cancerous and precancerous lesions in men and women. It has been established that high-risk HPV infection is the etiological agent of cervical cancer, which affects almost half a million women worldwide and has a 50% mortality rate (12,18). In developed countries, cervical cancer control relies on routine cytology screening to detect and treat cervical cancer precursor lesions, and HPV detection has been used for the management of women with equivocal cytology results (1,4,14). In resource-poor settings where cytology-based screening is difficult to implement, HPV detection has been proposed as the alternative primary screening test for cervical cancer (4, 17).Currently, HPV detection is performed on cervical samples collected in liquid medium by a trained clinician, which is often impractical or unavailable in remote areas and developing countries. Several approaches have been proposed to simplify the sample collection process for HPV detection. For example, HPV detection in self-collected vaginal swab samples has been proposed as a method that would eliminate the need for clinical visits, and we have shown that HPV detected in selfcollected vaginal swab samples stored in specimen transport medium (STM) had sensitivity and specificity similar to those of clinician-collected cervical swab samples stored in STM for detecting cervical neoplasia (16). Currently, cervical exfoliated cells are collected either in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), which is inexpensive but requires constant refrigeration, or in various liquid media, such as STM or Preservcyt, which preserve HPV D...

Zika virus (ZIKV) infection during pregnancy has been linked to severe birth defects, and the epidemiologic situation of the ZIKV epidemic in Ecuador is poorly understood.Guayaquil, Ecuador, has a tropical climate and experiences frequent outbreaks of dengue and chikungunya virus, and in December 2015, ZIKV was identified. Given the well-documented effects of ZIKV in pregnancy, including microcephaly, we tested for the presence of ZIKV in both plasma and cervical cytology of pregnant women. We report the identification of a population of pregnant women with a high incidence of ZIKV infection detected in the plasma and lower reproductive tract. A case-control study was performed to determine the incidence of ZIKV infection among low-income, pregnant women at risk for preterm delivery compared to matched controls. Plasma and cervical cytology specimens were tested for ZIKV by rRT-PCR. Fifty-nine pregnant women were enrolled. The incidence of ZIKV was 54% (32/59) overall: 18/31 (58.1%) in cases and 14/28 (50.0%) in controls. ZIKV detection in plasma and cervical cytology specimens demonstrated good agreement. Overall, outcomes for neonates born to ZIKV-positive and ZIKV-negative mothers were similar. However, two neonates were born with microcephaly to case mothers who were ZIKV positive. We report a high incidence of ZIKV infection (54%) in a distinctive population in Guayaquil, Ecuador. We identify ZIKV in cervical samples that correlates with ZIKV in the plasma.These data raise concerns regarding the breadth of the ZIKV epidemic in Ecuador and demonstrate the utility of cervical cytology specimens for ZIKV testing. K E Y W O R D Scervical cytology, incidence, pregnancy, preterm labor, Zika virus

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