"Even though we do expect the virus to come to the United States… we aren't expecting large outbreaks here," she said.
The Zika virus primarily affects monkeys and humans and is transmitted mostly by daytime-active mosquitoes. Zika does not cause serious complications in adults, but it is suspected of leading to severe brain defects in newborns.
The United States is likely not to develop within the next several years any widely available vaccine to treat the Zika virus, but it will begin this summer phase one trials to see if a potential vaccine is safe, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci told reporters on Monday.
"We have already started to develop the vaccine in the early stages and we can predict that we would likely be in phase one trial just to determine if it's safe and if it induces a good response, probably by the end of the summer," Fauci stated.
He added that by if trials by year end prove the vaccine is safe, the NIH will proceed to the next stage, but it is "unlikely to have a vaccine that's widely available for a few years."
