Zika Outbreak News & Updates: WHO Says Zika Test Is Just Weeks Away

According to the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), scientists may be able to develop a test for the Zika virus in just weeks from now, but a potential vaccine would enter the phase of large-scale clinical trials in at least 18 months from now.

On Feb.1, the W.H.O. declared the Zika virus a global public health emergency. According to The New York Times, this is only the fourth time when the global health organization had raised such an alert.

The Zika virus is a mosquito-borne infection related to the West Nile virus, yellow fever and dengue. The virus was first detected in Brazil in May and since then it has already spread through Latin America. W.H.O. estimates that by the year's end as many as four million people could be infected worldwide.

According to CNN, Venezuela is another country in Latin America that is hard affected by the Zika virus pandemic. Until now there have been 319 confirmed cases and President Nicolas Maduro declared that three people have died in Venezuela from complications related to the Zika virus.

No reliable test for Zikz virus exists yet, but W.H.O. hopes that a test will be ready in just weeks from now. There are ten companies aiming to provide tests by measuring the levels of antibodies in a patient or by using a molecular technique to detect the virus's presence in blood.

At a news conference in Geneva, Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, the W.H.O. assistant director general for health systems and innovation, declared that none of those Zika tests proposed so far have regulatory approval and none have been validated independently. However, Kieny added that it will take just weeks until the first independently validated and commercial tests will become available .

There is no vaccine for Zika virus yet, but Dr. Kieny pointed to two particularly promising efforts: one by Bharat Biotech, a pharmaceutical company in Hyderabad, India, and the other by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in Bethesda, Md. However, Dr. Kieny was not as optimistic about vaccines as about a Zika virus test. She pointing out that "vaccines are at least 18 months away from large-scale trials".