The World Health Organization declared an end to its global health emergency over the spread of the Zika virus on Friday, prompting dismay from some public health experts confronting the epidemic.

An agency advisory committee said it ended the emergency — formally known as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern — because Zika is now shown to be a dangerous mosquito-borne disease, like malaria or yellow fever, and should be viewed as an ongoing threat met as other diseases are, sometimes with W.H.O. help.

Committee members repeatedly emphasized that they did not consider the Zika crisis over.

“We are not downgrading the importance of Zika,” said Dr. Peter Salama, executive director of the W.H.O.’s health emergencies program. “We are sending the message that Zika is here to stay and the W.H.O. response is here to stay.”

Like all mosquito-borne diseases, Zika is seasonal and may repeatedly return to countries with the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry it, Dr. Salama added.</s>The World Health Organization (WHO) declared on Friday that the Zika virus and related neurological complications no longer constitute an international emergency but said it would continue to work on the outbreak through a “robust” programme.

The WHO’s Emergency Committee, which declared an public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) in February, said the virus still represents “a highly significant and a long-term problem”.

“The Zika virus and associated consequences remain a significant enduring public health challenge requiring intense action but no longer represent a PHEIC,” the WHO panel composed of independent experts said in a statement after meeting.

Carried by mosquitoes, the Zika virus can cause the rare birth defect microcephaly and other neurological disorders in infants and adults. It has spread to more than 60 countries and territories since the current outbreak was identified last year in Brazil.

“The Committee agreed that Zika must now be managed within the World Health Organization as are other very important infectious diseases and other threats,” Dr David Heymann, chair of the Zika Emergency Committee, told a news conference.

WHO director-general Dr Margaret Chan accepted the committee’s recommendations and declared an end to the emergency. But the UN health agency maintained recommendations including that people exposed to the Zika virus should take preventive measures for six months to avoid sexual transmission.

“It remains crucially important that pregnant women avoid travelling to areas with local transmission of Zika, because of the devastating complications that can occur in fetuses that become infected during pregnancy,” the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement.

“We are not downgrading the importance of Zika. In fact by placing this as a longer programme of work, we are sending the message that Zika is here to stay and WHO’s response is here to stay in a very robust manner,” said Dr Peter Salama, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme.

There have been some 2,300 confirmed cases worldwide of babies born with microcephaly, most in Brazil, but the figure is most likely a “significant under-estimate”, he said.</s>Much to the dismay of local politicians and business leaders, the Zika virus has not left Miami Beach. Last Friday, the city's true Zika nightmare became a reality: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said pregnant women should still avoid Miami Beach during Art Basel, one of the city's biggest economic drivers every year.

Despite the fact that CDC director Tom Frieden said last month that Zika will eventually become "endemic" to this hemisphere, there is a thin silver lining: The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today it no longer considers Zika a "public health emergency of international concern."

Instead, the agency says areas with Aedes aegypti mosquitoes should treat Zika like malaria or yellow fever. The organization says the virus is no longer an "exceptional" emergency with "potentially global" reach.

In a move that might seem confusing to outsiders, WHO Zika panel chair David Heymann said removing the international warning meant that "if anything, [Zika has] escalated in importance." Rather than concentrate on containing Zika globally, the WHO will now commit significant resources to managing the disease in the areas where it already exists.

Rather than Zika like an emergency outbreak, the WHO says it will now combat the virus through a "sustained and dedicated" anti-Zika program focused mostly on Latin America.

But WHO doctors say today's news does not mean Zika-affected cities — such as Miami — should ignore the risk Zika poses. In fact, the WHO stressed that Zika is "here to stay" in countries like Brazil.

The organization said it originally announced a public health emergency of international concern over Zika in after the first major clusters of microcephaly were found in Brazil. At the time, the WHO feared that microcephaly cases could spread like wildfire around the world.

Nine months later, the WHO says that scientists now have a better handle on how Zika spreads and and that the world no longer needs to fear an international outbreak. For example, the WHO says it now knows Zika cases will spread seasonally in warm months, just like malaria or chikungunya.

The WHO has previously issued "international concern" warnings for swine flu in 2009, polio in 2014, and Ebola in 2014.

In Miami's case, the move is mostly a boon to the city's tourism industry: One fewer "international outbreak" warning likely means a few more people will be willing to take a flight here and hang out on the beach.

But if you're a permanent resident, don't throw out your bug spray just yet.</s>GENEVA -- Acknowledging that Zika is "here to stay," the United Nations health agency on Friday ended its a 9-month-old emergency declaration over the spread of the Zika virus and began preparing for a longer-term response to the mosquito-borne virus that can result in severe neurological defects in newborns whose mothers are infected.

The World Health Organization's announcement dismayed some public health experts, who said countries are still wrestling with how to respond to epidemic.

However, U.N. officials noted that the move does not mean the agency is downgrading the threat posed by the virus, which has spread across Latin America, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Nearly 30 countries have reported birth defects linked to Zika, with 2,100 cases of nervous-system malformations reported in Brazil alone.

Recent outbreaks and related birth defects have also been detected in Southeast Asia although scientists believe that the virus has circulated there for decades.

Officials emphasized that the now-lifted public health emergency was declared in February, when Zika clusters were appearing and a sharp increase in research was needed -- and with the looming Rio Olympics in mind.

U.N. health officials said the emergency measures had led the world to an "urgent and coordinated response," but the virus had continued to spread. It acknowledged that "many aspects of this disease and associated consequences still remain to be understood, but this can best be done through sustained research."

"It is a significant and enduring public health challenge, but it no longer represents an emergency," Dr. David Heymann, who heads the World Health Organization's emergency committee on Zika, said after the panel met for the fifth time this year. "There was no downgrading of this."

Heymann said recommendations made in recent months were now being "internalized" at the Geneva-based agency.

"If anything, this has been escalated in importance by becoming activities that will be continued in the long term in the World Health Organization," he said.

Zika is mainly spread by mosquitoes but also can be spread through sex. Most infected people don't get sick. It can cause a mild illness, with fever, rash and joint pain.

It also causes microcephaly, or shrunken heads, in newborn children whose mothers were infected, leading to severe developmental problems and sowing grave concerns of would-be parents in countries hit by the virus.

Dr. Peter Salama, director of emergencies for the World Health Organization, said the new phase of fighting the virus requires development donors "to step up to the plate and see this for what it is, which is a long-term problem that the world will have to deal with for many years to come."

"We are sending the message that Zika is here to stay, and WHO's response is here to stay in a very robust manner," Salama said. Like other mosquito-borne diseases, Zika is seasonal and can be expected to return, Salama added, and countries now need to consider it an endemic disease and respond accordingly, with help from the WHO.

Responding to the U.N. announcement, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reiterated its position that pregnant women should avoid traveling to areas with local transmission of Zika.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is funding many efforts to find a vaccine against Zika, suggested that it was premature for WHO to lift the state of emergency, since summer is just beginning in the Southern Hemisphere.

"Are we going to see a resurgence in Brazil, Colombia and elsewhere?" Fauci asked. "If they pull back on the emergency, they'd better be able to reinstate it. Why not wait a couple of months to see what happens?"

Fauci's agency will not slow down its efforts, he said, adding that the "decisions we make about developing a vaccine or not are unrelated to what the WHO says."

Information for this article was contributed by Jamey Keaten and Mike Stobbe of the Associated Press and Donald G. McNeil Jr. of the New York Times.</s>(CNN) The Zika virus outbreak and related clusters of microcephaly are no longer a public health emergency of international concern, the World Health Organization said Friday.

This ends the declaration made by the organization in February due to the simultaneous spread of the virus and "extraordinary clusters" of microcephaly among babies born in areas where the virus was spreading.

"We are not downgrading the importance of Zika. By placing this as a long-term program of work, we are saying Zika is here to stay," said Dr. David Heymann, the chairman of the emergency committee on Zika virus and microcephaly, which made the announcement.

In February, it was not known that the virus was the cause of the neurological birth defect. In April, the WHO said the virus definitely causes microcephaly in babies and Guillain-Barré Syndrome in adults.

"The source of the concern was not that there was Zika, it was extraordinary clustering of microcephaly that hadn't been seen before at a time when lots of infection was occurring," Heymann said.

The declaration put into motion research, coordination and funding to answer that and many other questions about the virus, which was initially thought to be a mild mosquito-borne disease. Now it's known that in addition to the devastating neurological complications it can cause, the virus can be sexually transmitted

"There is still a lot of unknowns here, which is why it's so important to have a multiyear plan and program in place," said Dr. Peter Salama, executive director of the WHO's health emergencies program.

Although mosquito season has ended in some areas of the world and transmission of the virus has slowed, it is far from gone. "This disease is like all endemic diseases that have a seasonal appearance," Heymann said.

That is why the WHO's emergency committee recommended the change announced today, emphasizing that Zika is still a high priority. Now, the organization will create a technical committee to handle Zika research, vaccine development and other efforts going forward.

"A robust longer-term technical mechanism was now required to manage the global response," the committee determined.

Calling the WHO's action "a reasonable decision," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, nonetheless said the organization "should be prepared to re-examine the decision if, in fact, we have a resurgence of Zika in South America as we enter into the summer months of January and February in the Southern Hemisphere."

Heymann said the WHO was prepared to do so.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that the move does not change the need to continue efforts to combat the virus and its effects.

"Zika infection continues to be a serious threat to pregnant women, babies born to pregnant women with Zika, and their families. There is still much to learn about the disease. We need to learn more about Zika and its associated complications of microcephaly and other brain abnormalities, such as when Zika infection poses highest risk to a fetus during pregnancy, and the magnitude of that risk," the statement said.

As anticipated, the virus is continuing to spread around the world and is circulating in more than 60 countries and territories. Microcephaly and other neurological complications linked to the virus have been reported in at least 28 countries. Of the 2,300 confirmed cases of microcephaly, the majority have been in Brazil, where an increase in babies born with the condition was first seen last year . It's believed that this is only a portion of the actual number of such cases.

Thus, the CDC said, "It remains crucially important that pregnant women avoid traveling to areas with local transmission of Zika, because of the devastating complications that can occur in fetuses that become infected during pregnancy."</s>The Zika virus that has spread to more than 50 countries is no longer considered an international public health emergency, the World Health Organization declared Friday. But the change in designation does not represent a downgrading of Zika's importance, officials said.

The WHO labeled Zika an international emergency in February primarily to understand what was causing the "extraordinary clustering" of microcephaly cases in Brazil, the epicenter of the outbreak, said David Heymann, who chairs the expert panel that made the recommendation. When the emergency was declared, he said, researchers had not yet proven that the mosquito-borne virus causes the severe birth defect characterized by an abnormally small head and underdeveloped brain.

Studies have since established the link between Zika and microcephaly. Now, the best way to tackle the virus and its serious complications is for the WHO to manage "this significant and enduring public health challenge" within the organization, Heymann said. That will allow for a more sustained focus, with more dedicated resources and expertise, he added.

"This represents an escalation into a major activity within WHO," he said at a press conference in Geneva. "If anything, it's escalated in importance."

Peter Salama, a senior WHO official, said Zika represents a set of long-term issues, including neurological complications in children as well as adults, family planning and maternal reproductive health, that will require a comprehensive research agenda and sustained financing over many years.

Yet many public health officials and experts are worried that this technical distinction may be lost and end up sending the wrong message about Zika - even as new cases seem to be emerging in Asia.

The virus, which is primarily transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, can be passed from a pregnant women to her fetus and cause a host of grave birth defects beyond microcephaly. These problems are collectively known as congenital Zika syndrome. The degree of fetal risk when a pregnant woman has been infected is still unknown.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been leading the Zika response in the United States and playing a major surveillance and research role in Brazil and other countries. It stressed Friday that despite the "technical declaration" by the WHO, Zika infection continues to be a serious threat to pregnant women, babies born to pregnant women with Zika and their families.

"There is still much to learn about the disease," the CDC statement said. "We need to learn more about Zika and its associated complications of microcephaly and other brain abnormalities, such as when Zika infection poses highest risk to a fetus during pregnancy and the magnitude of that risk. It remains crucially important that pregnant women avoid traveling to areas with local transmission of Zika, because of the devastating complications that can occur in fetuses that become infected during pregnancy."

The CDC said there is also urgent need to develop improved diagnostics and vaccines that can prevent infection and spread of the disease. Public health experts and clinicians need to better understand the risk of neurological complications in affected infants, children and adults, the risks of mosquito-borne and sexual transmission of Zika and how best to prevent Zika infection, the agency said.

The WHO's expert panel extensively discussed how the change in designation would be interpreted and whether that would make it harder to raise money for the international response, Heymann said.

In the end, Salama said, the organization hopes its donors will recognize that Zika is here to stay and that the world will need to deal with it for years to come. Zika and microcephaly will surface wherever there are vectors that can transmit the disease, the experts said.

Asked why the WHO did not drop the emergency designation in April when the CDC concluded that the virus causes microcephaly, Heymann said there were still outstanding worries about the upcoming Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and "understanding what the risks were," he said.

The experts also addressed the continuing mystery about the relatively few cases of microcephaly outside of Brazil. Most of the 2,300 confirmed cases of microcephaly are in that country, with a few dozen also reported in Colombia, where there was a large Zika outbreak.

"The number of confirmed cases [of microcephaly] is less than what we did imagine," Salama said at the press conference. "But we know it's probably not the whole story." He cited biases in how cases were reported that could mean a "significant underestimate" of the toll worldwide.

So far, 28 countries have reported cases of microcephaly. Nineteen have reported adult cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can cause paralysis, "so even though Brazil tops the list, this is not confined to Brazil nor will it be in the future," Salama said.

Researchers have been investigating whether other factors could explain Zika's damage in Brazil's hardest-hit northeast region, including genetic factors, environmental contaminants and co-infections.

A presentation by Brazilian officials to the WHO's Zika expert panel has not yet found a "co-factor" to explain why Zika is causing so much more microcephaly in Brazil, Heymann said. However, "these studies can't be done overnight."</s>Zika is no longer a global health emergency spreading across borders and requiring a coordinated international response, the World Health Organization declared on Friday, while emphasizing that managing the infectious disease remains a significant challenge for the long-term.

The WHO declaration does not mean that people should stop taking steps to prevent the spread of Zika, which is transmitted primarily by the bite of an infected species of mosquito but also through sex, said Dan Epstein, a spokesman for the international health agency.

“Zika is still a very significant long-term problem,” Epstein said, noting that the WHO’s declaration has no influence on efforts by Miami-Dade, Florida and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to combat spread of the virus by spraying pesticides, trapping mosquitoes and other approaches.

“We certainly collaborate with them,” he said, “but we’re not involved operationally.”

WHO officials first declared Zika a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in February after an outbreak of the virus in Brazil led to a cluster of birth defects and other neurological disorders in babies born to mothers infected while pregnant.

Since then, Zika has spread through the Caribbean, Central America, nearly all of South America and other parts of the world. Researchers also have learned more about the virus, including identifying a causal link between Zika and microcephaly — though even that connection requires more research, Epstein said.

“There’s a lot of work to do, and what we have to do is improve and coordinate more research,” he said. “We don’t know in some cases whether populations that live in countries where Zika is now endemic are already immune to infection. … We don’t know what co-factors are causing more microcephaly cases in some areas than others.”

Mara Gambineri, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Health, said the state still considers Zika a public health threat.

“Our state continues to see increases in both travel-related and locally acquired cases of Zika,” she said. “Everyone, especially pregnant women, still need to take Zika seriously and remain vigilant.”

In Florida, health officials have reported 1,188 Zika infections this year, with 234 locally acquired cases and 939 travel-related cases. Included in those two categories are 160 pregnant women, but the health department does not disclose their counties of residence or manner of infection.

Miami-Dade remains the only county in Florida with active mosquito-borne spread of Zika, with four new locally acquired cases reported on Friday.

A total of 38 Florida counties are under a state public health emergency declaration because of Zika, though all but four counties have reported only travel-related cases acquired abroad in areas where the virus is widespread. Locally transmitted Zika infections have been reported in Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Pinellas counties — but active spread of the virus has been identified only in sections of Miami and Miami Beach.

Of the 234 mosquito-borne Zika infections statewide confirmed by the health department this year, 222 cases were contracted in Miami-Dade.

Among the Miami-Dade cases, 38 were exposed in Miami’s Wynwood district, 77 in Miami Beach, 10 in Miami’s Little River neighborhood, and 93 somewhere within the county but outside of those designated zones. Another four mosquito-borne cases in Miami-Dade had possible exposure in Miami Beach and Wynwood.

As of Friday, the state health department was conducting 10 investigations in Miami-Dade, including one each in a one-square-mile section of Little River and a 4.5-square-mile zone in Miami Beach. The remaining eight investigations in Miami-Dade are outside of those two zones.

Gambineri said the department has seen a rise in Miami-Dade infections requiring investigation to determine the area of exposure because the agency is now announcing cases once it receives lab confirmation of Zika — rather than waiting for epidemiologists to complete their probe into where transmission occurred.

The health department also is seeing more infections involving people who have traveled to Miami Beach, Little River and elsewhere in the county, increasing the difficulty for epidemiologists to pinpoint the area of exposure, she said.

“For some we may never determine exactly where transmission occurred,” Gambineri said, “but … the primary purpose of an investigation is to determine if additional people are infected and if active transmission of Zika is occurring in an area.”</s>The World Health Organization (WHO) declared on Friday that the Zika virus and related neurological complications no longer constitute an international emergency but said that it would continue to work on the outbreak through a "robust program".

The WHO's Emergency Committee, which declared an international public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) in February, said in a statement that they felt that "the Zika virus and associated consequences remain a significant enduring public health challenge requiring intense action but no longer represent a PHEIC."

"We are not downgrading the importance of Zika, by placing this as a longer program of work, we are sending the message that Zika is here to stay," Dr. Peter Salama, Executive Director of WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, told a news briefing.</s>The mosquito-borne Zika virus will no longer be treated as an international medical emergency, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared.

 By lifting its nine-month-old declaration, the UN's health agency is acknowledging that Zika is here to stay.

 The infection has been linked to severe birth defects in almost 30 countries.

 These include microcephaly, where babies are born with abnormally small heads and restricted brain development.

 The WHO says more than 2,100 cases of nervous-system malformations have been reported in Brazil alone.

 Although the virus is mostly spread by mosquitoes, it can also be sexually transmitted.

 Few people die from Zika and only one in five people infected is thought to develop symptoms. These can include fever, a rash and joint pain.

 Dr David Heymann, the head of a WHO emergency committee on the virus, said it still posed a "significant and enduring" threat.

 The WHO will now shift to a longer-term approach against the infection, which has spread across Latin America, the Caribbean and beyond.

 WHERE DID ZIKA COME FROM?

 It was first identified in monkeys in Uganda in 1947.

 The first human case was detected in Nigeria in 1954 and there have been further outbreaks in Africa, South East Asia and the Pacific Islands.

 Most were small and Zika has not previously been considered a major threat to human health.

 But in May 2015 it was reported in Brazil and has since spread rapidly.

 "Its current explosive pandemic re-emergence is, therefore, truly remarkable," the US, according to BBC News.

 ZR</s>The World Health Organization announced some good news Friday: Zika is no longer considered a public health emergency of global proportions.

However, the threat the mosquito-borne disease poses to pregnant women and babies is still a threat. Zika is now a chronic problem, Dr. Pete Salama of WHO says, NPR reports. He emphasizes,

He further explains, “In fact, by placing this as a longer term program of work, we’re sending the message that Zika is here to stay. And WHO’s response is here to stay, in a robust manner.”

It is clear that Zika is still spreading, and cases of microcephaly are still happening worldwide. Argentina reported its first case, while Florida continues to deal with people who fall victim to the virus.

Pregnant women and their partners should remain alert regarding the palces they travel to, Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states.

“Regardless of how WHO defines Zika, [the disease] is unprecedented, and it’s an extraordinary risk for pregnant women,” Frieden says, adding, “That’s why it’s important that pregnant women not travel to places where Zika is spreading.”

These locations include countries in South America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and areas in Florida.

Since Zika was declared a public health emergency by WHO in February, the pattern of infection seems to have slowed down. Back then, Brazil had over 4,000 microcephaly cases under investigation, and the virus was rapidly spreading across the world.

But Brazil has only confirmed 2,100 cases of microcephaly linked to Zika, and other countries in South America have reported fewer. Colombia has 57, and the USA has 31, WHO reports. Colombia is still looking into more than 300 microcephaly cases to see if Zika was a factor, while other countries have not been as attentive when it comes to reporting confirmed cases.
The World Health Organization declares an end to its global health crisis over the spread of the Zika virus as it has been shown to be a dangerous mosquito-borne disease like malaria or yellow fever.