New York Senator Chuck Schumer announced a plan Sunday to stop the virus.
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The World Health Organisation has said that as many as four million people in the Americas may become infected with the virus.
West Nile spreads badly because it is carried by several different species of mosquito that are common across the US, and because it also infects birds, so they act as what’s called a reservoir for the virus.
“There are too many unknowns about Zika to reliably judge the ability to research and develop a vaccine effectively at this time”, it said in a statement. Officials say doctors should ask pregnant women about their travel and certain symptoms, and, if warranted, test them for an infection with the Zika virus.
The virus spread is affecting World Health Organization due to its links with birth defects as well as brain damage, the lack of immunity among affected populations and the lack of vaccines and treatment facilities.
Efforts to combat Zika are focused on protecting people from being bitten and on eradicating mosquitoes, a tough task in many parts of Latin America, where people live in poverty and there are plentiful breeding grounds for the insect.
Public Health England (PHE) has said men should wear condoms for 28 days after returning from any of the countries where Zika infection has been reported if their partner was at risk of pregnancy, or already pregnant.
“The virus is hard to detect and there is no quick point-of-care test which can be used”, he said.
A law professor involved in the anencephaly case and also involved in the Zika petition said early detection of microcephaly and access to contraception are also concerns.
In theory, a vaccine is possible but development testing and trials for human vaccines normally take years and costs hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Sao Paulo-based Butantan Institute said last week it planned to develop a vaccine “in record time”, although its director warned this was still likely to take three to five years. But work is underway towards developing a vaccine for the Zika virus.
In some Central American countries, notably Brazil, the virus is linked to a steep increase in babies born with abnormally small heads and cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a nervous system disorder that sometimes results in paralysis. As with most Zika cases, she didn’t exhibit any symptoms, and has since recovered.
On January 15, the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised pregnant women “to consider postponing travel to countries with ongoing Zika virus transmission”.
Recent outbreaks of the Zika virus were first reported from the Pacific in 2007 and 2013 (Yap and French Polynesia respectively), and from the Americas (Brazil and Colombia) and Africa (Cape Verde) in 2015.
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The government has urged women to delay pregnancy for six to eight months to avoid potential infection.
