What started as a virus limited to Latin American countries has now become a global emergency.
Zika virus has spread outside of Latin regions that the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global emergency on Monday, Fox News reported. Now, the question that a lot of concerned people have is if a vaccine is now available to combat this dreaded virus.
Health Day reported that experts assured the public that a vaccine against the mosquito-borne illness may soon be put to human clinical trials by the end of 2016.
"It is to our advantage we already have existing vaccine platforms to use as a sort of jumping off point," Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said in a statement.
Fauci added during a conference that researchers are investigating the effects of two promising vaccine formulations. Each of these formulations is based on previous vaccines developed as a response to other mosquito-borne illness like West Nile virus and Dengue.
Although experts remain optimistic that the vaccine will be tested before the year ends, Fauci warned it may still take several years before the formulation becomes readily available in the market. "It is important to understand that we will not have a widely available safe and effective Zika vaccine this year, and probably not even in the next few years," he explained.
Chief of staff to the President of Brazil, Jaques Wagner, said on Monday that Brazilian researchers are joining forces with U.S. researchers in developing a vaccine.
Wagner also commented on the availability of the formulation. He said, "If we are really lucky, it could be three years. But it could be between three and five years."
Zika continues to affect more newborn babies. Health officials in Brazil discovered that there was a significant increase in the number of babies born with abnormally small head, or microcephaly, ever since the outbreak started.
The NIAID is currently hoping to see new proposals for vaccines, tests for the virus, and treatments.
