Zika Virus in Ontario: Evaluating a Rapid Risk Assessment Tool

The report by Van Meer et al. on “Zika Virus in Ontario” is very interesting. ¹ The authors state that “[t]he evaluation established that the locally tailored guidance tool, adapted from national and international approaches to RRAs, facilitated a systematic, evidence-informed, and timely formal RRA process at PHO for the Zika virus RRA, which met the needs of end-users.” ^{1 (p230)} In fact, the development and evaluation process is very interesting, but the great concern is on the exact evaluation of the practice against a new diagnosis of possible cases. ² Most of the presently available guideline is usually passive. There is a need for development of an actual active guideline against hidden asymptomatic Zika cases, which are very common. ³ In addition, the user usually follows developed guidelines, but there is generally no reassessment of the guideline after implementation and listening to the ideas of the user and the local population.