What we know: World Health Organization declares global emergency over Zika virus

Locally transmitted Zika virus was first reported in Brazil in May 2015. The Pan American Health Organization is constantly updating a list of countries where the Zika virus has been confirmed.

The WHO has designated the Zika virus a public health emergency of global concern – an action it has taken only three times before – and which paves the way for the mobilisation of more money and manpower to fight the pathogen spreading “explosively” through the Americas.

How is Brazil tackling Zika?

Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general, described Zika as a major problem after the first meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee in Geneva, Switzerland.

DCHHS said the best way to avoid Zika virus is to avoid mosquito bites and to avoid sexual contact with a person who has Zika virus. It wasn’t believed to cause any serious effects until past year; about 80 percent of infected people never experience symptoms. There also is a suspected connection between the Zika virus and the paralyzing neurological condition known as Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Dr Coleman said the WHO’s elevation of the virus to a public health emergency meant much-needed research can now be fast-tracked.

“If indeed, the scientific linkage between Zika and microcephaly is established, can you imagine if we do not do all this work now and wait until the scientific evidence comes out?”

“Both individuals have a history of travel to a Zika affected country”.

The WHO office for Southeast Asia, in a statement, urged countries in the region to “strengthen surveillance and take preventive measures against the Zika virus disease which is strongly suspected to have a causal relation with clusters of microcephaly and other neurological abnormalities”.

A Brazilian baby born with the effects of an illness linked to Zika.

As alarm grows over the surge in number of cases, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Jamaica and Puerto Rico have warned women to delay conceiving until the Zika outbreak is brought under control. “But having these cases occurring and pinning it to Zika is tough”. “That is quite a lot”, Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria said on Colombian radio.

“Mass community engagement” in areas with the mosquitos and their breeding grounds, and rapid development of diagnostic tools are essential to curbing the virus, as a vaccine may be years away, said Costello, a paediatrician.

A World Health Organization global response unit “using all the lessons we’ve learned from the Ebola crisis” has been set up, he said.

Currently, there is no vaccine to prevent or medicine to treat the disease.

In the epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean, the main villain identified so far is called Aedes aegypti – a species of mosquito that spreads other tropical diseases, including chikungunya and dengue fever.