WHO seeks $56 million for plan to combat Zika virus

(Reuters) The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday (Feb 17) that $56 million (39 million pounds) would be needed until June to fund a strategy to combat the Zika virus which has spread to 39 countries and has been linked to birth defects in Brazil.

The funds sought, including $25 million for the WHO, would be used to fast-track vaccines, carry out diagnostics and research into how the mosquito-borne virus spreads, as well as virus control, the WHO said.

Last year, the United Nations health agency was forced to admit its handling of an Ebola virus epidemic, which killed more than 11,300 in two years, most of them in West Africa, had been inadequate. Public health expert Lawrence Gostin said on Wednesday the WHO's reaction to the Zika emergency was again "too little, too late".

The WHO declared the Zika outbreak a global public health emergency on Feb 1, noting its association with two neurological disorders, microcephaly in babies and Guillain-Barre syndrome that can cause paralysis.

Director-General Margaret Chan will travel to Brazil from Feb 22-24 to review Zika-related measures supported by WHO and will meet the health minister, a WHO spokeswoman said.

"Possible links with neurological complications and birth malformations have rapidly changed the risk profile for Zika from a mild threat to one of very serious proportions," Chan said in the WHO's strategy paper.

But Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, warned that the WHO had "grossly underestimated" the task as the virus was likely to spread to many other regions from the Americas.