There was some bad news in the ongoing Zika virus saga last week when reports of the first transmitted cases of Zika virus in Florida surfaced, and this week is more of the same, as a top expert on disease control has warned that the United States is likely to see more cases of locally-transmitted Zika in the future.
Appearing on CBS' Face the Nation, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, did have some good news about the situation, though: it's highly unlikely the Zika situation will ever reach the levels of that seen in areas such as Brazil or Puerto Rico.
"We definitely don't take this lightly: this is something we always anticipated and prepared for the worst," said Dr. Fauci. "But we do not feel this is going to turn into that broadly disseminated situation that we've seen in Brazil or that we're seeing in Puerto Rico."
Despite that, however, he warned that locally transmitted cases are almost a certainty — which is particularly bad for states such as Florida, which had already been on edge due to the presence of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the state, and now actually has a confirmed instance of local transmission to worry about.
So, armed with this potential knowledge, what are health authorities doing about it? Nothing that hasn't been already done. Without a vaccine, all health officials can do is work to reduce the number of mosquitoes in affected areas by destroying the habitats in which they live or breed. Similarly, they are advising the public to continue making efforts to reduce the likelihood of being exposed to the virus, such as staying indoors, covering up when outside and using mosquito repellent.
As for the Zika vaccine itself, Dr. Fauci revealed that "phase one" trials for one such vaccine is poised to begin in a few weeks, meaning that wider trials can begin as soon as early 2017.
"We're making very good progress, it's really on a very fast track," he said. "I would say that we will very likely in the next couple of weeks go into the phase 1 trial in one of the several candidates that are being considered."
Unfortunately, even if there is "very good progress" being made, Dr. Fauci notes that it could all be halted quite quickly due to one important factor: money. These efforts take an extraordinary amount of money to undertake, and without approval for additional funding for the National Institutes and other health authorities from Congress, it won't be long before their coffers become empty. In fact, those institutions are "very quickly" reaching that point already.
