Like a virus, the story of Zika virus in the Americas is evolving very, very rapidly. Just in the last week we’ve seen:

• the World Health Organization declare Zika a global public health emergency
• confirmation of sexual transmission of the virus
• a pre-emptive state of emergency declared in four Florida counties
• concerns about Carnival (which is going on right now)
• even conspiracy theories blaming Zika’s spread on genetically modified mosquitoes

To help public health investigators, policy makers, epidemiologists and others keep up with the virus, the team at HealthMap has released a dedicated Zika virus tracking resource at http://www.healthmap.org/zika/. The new map brings in Zika-related information and news from a variety of sources in near real-time, and includes a constantly updated interactive timeline of the virus’s explosive spread across South and Central America.

The HealthMap team is also providing regularly updated coverage of the Zika virus outbreak on their Disease Daily blog.