The most recent Ebola outbreak, which originated in west Africa in 2014, killed 11,000 people on the continent and frightened Americans nationwide.
But now the World Heath Organization has said a different disease could pose an even bigger threat than the Ebola outbreak: the Zika virus.
The Zika outbreak, which originated in Latin America last year, has already infected over 1.5 million people with most local transmissions occurring in Brazil and elsewhere in Central and South America. Eighty-two cases have been reported in the U.S. by travelers returning from countries where the virus has been transmitted locally.
"In many ways the Zika outbreak is worse than the Ebola epidemic of 2014-15," said Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, an independent global charitable foundation dedicated to improving health. "Most virus carriers are symptomless. It is a silent infection in a group of highly vulnerable individuals – pregnant women – that is associated with a horrible outcome for their babies."
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The WHO declared Zika an international public health emergency on Feb. 1.
President Obama has already asked Congress to dedicate $1.8 billion to combat the virus.
And there are still many questions about the virus.
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Zika, transmitted through mosquito bites, has recently been linked to a congenital condition that causes newborns to have unusually small heads. Microcephaly, the name of the defect, causes smaller than normal cerebrums in babies and improperly developed brains. Symptoms of the virus include fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes.
Despite comparisons to Ebola, Zika is not fatal. In fact, infected people, of which only 20 percent show symptoms, usually clear the effects in fewer than 10 days. Still, there no promising vaccine in the works for Zika currently. Several are under trial for Ebola.
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"The real problem is that trying to develop a vaccine that would have to be tested on pregnant women is a practical and ethical nightmare," said Mike Turner, head of infection and immuno-biology at the Wellcome Trust.
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