Zika no longer an international emergency, says WHO

Zika will be in the same class as dengue after removal of the designation

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday declared that Zika no longer constitutes an international emergency, but it stressed a need for a long-term effort to address the virus, which has been linked to birth defects and neurological complications.

Officials on WHO’s Emergency Committee made clear the Zika still constitutes a global public health threat. They warned the virus, which has been found in 60 countries since the outbreak was identified last year in Brazil, will continue to spread where mosquitoes that carry the virus are present.

Removing the international emergency designation will put Zika in a class with other diseases, such as dengue, that pose serious risks and require continued research, including efforts to develop effective vaccines.

But some public health experts worried that losing the “international emergency” label could slow research into the virus, which continues to cause infections in the United States and elsewhere.

WHO in February declared Zika a public health emergency of international concern — a designation under international law that compels countries to report outbreaks. The moved was part of an effort to determine if Zika was linked to reports in Brazil of the severe birth defect microcephaly and the neurological disorder Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Traditionally, Zika had only been thought to cause mild symptoms.

That goal has been met, said David Heymann, chair of the Zika Emergency Committee and a professor of infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in a conference call with reporters following the committee meeting in Geneva.

Because research has now shown that Zika and microcephaly are linked, “the committee felt that what is best now is a very robust technical response to the virus, and that would require work within WHO,” he said.

The UN health agency maintained recommendations including that people exposed to the Zika virus should take preventive measures for six months to avoid sexual transmission.

“It remains crucially important that pregnant women avoid traveling to areas with local transmission of Zika, because of the devastating complications that can occur in fetuses that become infected during pregnancy,” the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) said in a statement.