Zika Virus Has No Cure, No Vaccine; Is it Headed to the United States?

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Zika is causing a major panic in Brazil when experts reveal that it's causing babies to be born with abnormally small heads. With the massive spread of Zika across Latin America, including Puerto Rico which reported its first case just recently, VOX reports that Zika may be heading to the mainland U.S.

According to Hindustan Times, the Zika virus is named after the Zika forest in Uganda, where it was discovered in 1947. Zika virus spread through mosquito bites. Even though it has been around for decades, little has been known about the Zika virus. Vox notes that previous cases of Zika has only caused rash, headaches, fever and bone pain, which appear three to 12 days after infection and disappear after a week.

However, in the past year, approximately 1.5. million people have been infected with the Zika virus in Brazil, leading experts to think that the virus might be more dangerous than what they thought.

Along with the uptick of the mosquito-borne disease is the rise on the number of microcephaly cases in the country. Starting October 2015, the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention reported that the Brazilian MOH has received an increase in the number of babies born with microcephaly at approximately 3,000, which is 10 times the usual number, per VOX.

Microcephaly is a congenital condition where babies are born with small heads and brains that are not developed completely. CDC notes that some of the babies born with this birth defect have been tested positive with the Zika virus.

Now, with the overwhelming cases of Zika popping up in areas that have never experienced them before, experts fear that the U.S. is next.

"It’s spreading really fast. I think [the Zika virus] is going to be knocking on the doorstep in places like Florida and Texas probably in the spring or summer," Scott Weaver, director of the Institute for Human Infections and Immunity at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, told VOX.

What makes the spread of the disease more alarming is that because little has been known and researched about it, Zika virus has no cure or vaccine available, per Hindustan Times.

Apart from Zika, VOX also reports that other mosquito-borne diseases, chikungunya (a viral disease that affected Central and South America as well as Florida) and dengue or "breakbone fever," have also reportedly been increasing.

CDC recommends people who are traveling to Brazil and other infected areas, especially those who are pregnant, to "take precautions to avoid mosquito bites to reduce their risk of infection with Zika virus and other mosquito-borne viruses such as dengue and chikungunya."