How the world is fighting Zika and future epidemics

The WHO announced that Zika is no longer an official "global health emergency," but America's chief of infectious diseases says it's too early to downgrade the emergency status. Zika is in Florida and 50 countries around the world.

While the symptoms of the Zika may seem mild to most, the virus can be passed down from a pregnant woman to her fetus and cause devastating birth defects, particularly microcephaly.

Microcephaly is a life-threatening condition that results in an abnormally small head and severe brain damage. And the full effects aren't always clear at birth.

"It's also causing brain damage across a whole spectrum of conditions that can become manifest, in some cases, a whole year into a child's development or later," Stephen Morrison, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said. "We are now beginning to fear that we have a hidden epidemic on our hands."

Despite this Zika hasn't seen the same attention as other "epidemics" like Ebola, which spiked in 2014.

The government also dedicated a lot less money to fighting Zika, and only after a lot of bickering in Congress.

In this episode from the America Abroad series, experts look at how epidemics like Zika grow and affect the world, what the U.S. and other countries need to do to fight them and what you can do to stay safe in "Fighting Zika and Future Epidemics."

To listen to the whole episode, click the audio player above.

Further reading

• Don't forget about Zika when planning vacation, health officials say

• Zika (not) in Minnesota: What you need to know

• New Ebola vaccine has '100 percent' effectiveness in early results

• What will it take to end AIDS pandemic?

• More from MPR News Presents

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