Brazil has signed an agreement with a Texas research hospital to develop a vaccine against the Zika virus, the country's health minister said Thursday, adding the goal is for the vaccine to be ready for clinical testing within 12 months.
Minister Marcelo
Castro said at a news conference that the government will invest $1.9 million
in the research, which will be jointly conducted by the University of Texas
Medical Branch in Galveston and the Evandro Chagas Institute in the Amazonian
city of Belem — two facilities specializing in study of mosquito viruses.
He said the
Health Ministry also has reached vaccine partnerships with the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention and is looking to work with pharmaceutical giant
GlaxoSmithKline because of its role developing a vaccine against Ebola
after a deadly outbreak in West Africa in 2014.
Brazil's Zika
outbreak has become a public health crisis since researchers here linked the
mosquito-borne virus to a surge in a rare birth defects compromising infants'
brains. The connection has yet to be scientifically proven, but the CDC has
pointed to strong evidence of a link between the two and called on pregnant
women to avoid travel to 26 countries and territories in the Americas with active
outbreaks.
Brazilian
officials have previously said any vaccine for Zika could take as many as five
years but Castro on Thursday said he was more optimistic, saying that it could
be ready for distribution within three years.
As part of a
stream of foreign researchers and regulators arriving to the South American
nation in the coming days, representatives from the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration will meet with their Brazilian counterparts to ensure that
clinical testing of the vaccine can take place as quickly and smoothly as
possible.
"This isn't
just Brazil's concern; it's the world's concern," he said.
While Castro said
the government's main focus now is on quickly developing a vaccine, reports
about the virus' evolution continue to emerge.
On Thursday authorities
reported a third adult death in Brazil with possible links to Zika: a
20-year-old woman who died last April in Rio Grande do Norte state after being
hospitalized with a severe respiratory problems.
Castro said
doctors had been perplexed by the death, which occurred before the Zika
outbreak had been discovered and was originally classified as a result of
pneumonia. But test results made known this week confirmed traces of Zika in
the woman's blood.
"We're still
studying this in greater detail," Castro said, cautioning that it's
impossible to know what role, if any, Zika caused in her death that the death,
which was reported to the WHO.
Castro said World
Health Organization chief Margaret Chan is expected to visit Brazil on Feb.
23 to help coordinate the government's response with other agencies around the
world. An initial delegation of 15 researchers from the CDC was slated to
arrive in Brazil on Friday, he added.
In a separate
news conference, Defense Minister Aldo Rebelo said some 220,000 members of
Brazil's Armed Forces would be taking part in a nationwide effort on Saturday
to educate the population on how to eliminate mosquito breeding in and around
their homes.
Rebelo said the
troops will go door-to-door to hand out pamphlets and would not enter people's
homes or apply insecticide. He said the troops required further training on how
to use insecticide, adding that just over 3,000 so far have been trained on how
to use the product
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