ASSESSMENT OF AWARENESS OF MEDICAL STUDENTS IN THE CLINICAL PHASE IN KSAU-HS,COM, RIYADH TOWARDS ZIKA VIRUS

To assess the level of awareness of medical students in clinical yearsregarding Zika Virus, and to compare the level of awareness among male and female student. This is a cross sectional survey of medical students in the clinical years in KSAU-HS, Riyadh, College of Medicine. Assessment was done by a self-administered questionnaire, and data entry analysis was done by using SPSS version 20. Of the 152 participants out of 293 students, 114 were male (75%) and 38 were female (25%). 29 out of 152 reported that they had never heard of the virus before (19.1%). 36 (29.3%) of participants chose an infected Aedes species mosquito\'s bite, 40 (32.5%) chose that maternofetal transmission occurs during pregnancy, and only 9 (7.3%) chose that it can be transmitted through sexual contact. When asked about previous Zika disease outbreaks, 76 (61.8%) students said that they have heard of the 2015 Brazil outbreak, 6 (4.9%) students said that they had heard about the 2013 French Polynesia outbreak, and not a single student said that they had heard about the 2007 Yap outbreak. In conclusion, a low level of knowledge regarding Zika virus was found amongst medical students especially when compared to their knowledge of MERS-COV.