Photo: Reuters/E. Su
(VOVworld) - A ZIKA virus vaccine is at least 18 months away from large scale clinical trials, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday. The WHO said institutions in the US and India were leading the global race to find a way of immunizing against the mosquito-borne disease, which is expected to be officially linked to the birth defect microcephaly within weeks. Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO assistant director-general for health systems and innovation said there were 15 institutes around the world working on a Zika vaccine, including teams in Brazil. She added that two vaccine candidates seem to be more advanced: a DNA vaccine from the US National Institutes for Health (NIH) and an inactivated product from Bharat Biotech in India.

The Zika outbreak has affected around 33 countries - mostly in South and Central America, and was recently declared an international public health emergency by the WHO. Brazil is one epicenter of the outbreak with 1.5 million cases reported, followed by Colombia with 22,600 infected cases.