GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday called for $56 million to combat the Zika virus, a disease that has been linked to severe birth defects in Brazil and has spread to 39 countries.
The funds sought would be used until June to fast-track vaccines, carry out diagnostics and research into how the mosquito-borne virus spreads, as well as virus control, the WHO said.
A public health expert, Lawrence Gostin, said the United Nations health agency had “grossly underestimated” the need as the virus, which has spread rapidly across the Americas, will likely spread to many other regions.
The WHO declared the outbreak a global public health emergency on Feb 1, noting the association of the virus with two neurological disorders: microcephaly in babies and Guillain-Barre syndrome that can cause paralysis.
“Possible links with neurological complications and birth malformations have rapidly changed the risk profile for Zika from a mild threat to one of very serious proportions,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said in a WHO strategy paper yesterday.
The funds sought to include $25 million for the agency and its regional office and the rest for aid partners such as UNICEF. The WHO expects the money to come from states and other donors. In the meantime, it has tapped a new emergency contingency fund for $2 million for initial operations.
Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, said the WHO should have a much larger emergency contingency fund. He compared the funding plan to the WHO’s initial slow response to the outbreak of Ebola, a virus that killed more than 11,300 people in two years, mostly in West Africa.
Brazil, worst hit by the Zika outbreak, said yesterday that most of the 508 confirmed cases of microcephaly reported in the country are likely related to the virus, and called its previous count too conservative.
Microcephaly is marked by abnormally small head size that can result in developmental problems. Brazil is investigating a surge in the number of cases, but it has not yet been proven that the virus can cause the rare defect.
The Health Ministry reported yesterday a total of 4,443 suspected and confirmed cases of microcephaly, up from 4,314 a week earlier. It did not, however, update its total of 41 cases in which it said that microcephaly had been linked by laboratory tests to Zika infections.
The ministry said later that the government would cease to update the confirmed number of linked cases because “the Health Ministry considers that there were Zika virus infections in most of the mothers whose babies have been diagnosed” with the condition. The previous counts, the ministry said, “did not adequately represent the number of cases observed.”
There is no treatment for Zika, which had been viewed as a relatively mild illness until the concerns over microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome emerged.
At least 15 companies and academic groups are rushing to develop a vaccine. Hopes of a breakthrough took a small step forward yesterday when US biotech firm Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc said its experimental shot had induced a robust and durable response in mice.
Colombia is another Latin American country hard hit by Zika and that country’s health minister said the effects of the virus there could have global relevance as scientists research the suspected link with microcephaly.
In contrast to Brazil, Colombia has yet to register any cases of the birth defect connected to Zika, Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria told Reuters.
