The World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday that it has created a global unit to respond to the Zika virus, voicing concerns that the disease could spread across Africa and Asia. "We have now set up a global response unit, which brings together all people across WHO in headquarters, in the regions, to deal with the formal response" to Zika, WHO expert Anthony Costello told reporters in Geneva. The U.N. agency had said Monday that a surge in cases in South America of microcephaly – a devastating condition in which a baby is born with an abnormally small head and brain – was likely caused by the mosquito-borne Zika virus, and declared the situation a "public health emergency of international concern." Costello, an expert on microcephaly, said that WHO's new response unit would aim to use "all the lessons we've learned from the Ebola crisis" to help quickly address Zika and the birth defects and neurological conditions it is believed to cause. The pediatrician emphasized the urgency of rapid action, stressing that there was no reason to believe that the crisis would remain limited to South America, where 25 countries so far have reported Zika cases. "We are worried that this could also spread back into other areas of the world where the population may not be immune, and we know that the mosquitos that carry Zika virus (...) are present through most of Africa, parts of southern Europe, and many parts of Asia, particularly south Asia," Costello said.
