CRI听力:Two New Cases of Zika Virus Found in Australia

The New South Wales health department said the two patients had presented with mild cases of the virus and have since recovered, and said that it was very unlikely that Zika virus had established local transmission, especially as the mosquitoes that spread the infection are not prevalent there.

Medical entomologist Cameron Webb told a media briefing in Sydney said the yellow fever mosquito driving the Zika outbreak in Brazil is found in the tropics in far north of Australia's Queensland state and it is not present in metropolitan Australia.

Now the authorities in Queensland have called an emergency meeting to ensure the state is well-equipped to handle the virus that will most likely reach the country through the Torres Strait via Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific.

As yet there is no vaccine or cure for the disease.

And Senior World Health Organisation (WHO) doctor Antony Costello said the development of vaccines for the Zika virus "may be years, if not months away."

The WHO declared the virus an international emergency just one day ago.

"We've been working on a vaccine for dengue for 15 years and we still don't have a vaccine. And even if we got lucky and found a biologically vulnerable part of this virus to get a vaccine, the procedures would take I think at the minimum we're talking about years not months, so I think we have to be very cautious about a vaccine."

Costello said the EL Nino weather phenomenon may be related to the outbreak of the Zika virus, as the weather system causes more rainfall, and that usually means more mosquitoes, some of which carry the Zika virus.

"Maybe one reason why there has been an expansion of Zika virus is related to the El Nino phenomenon whereby the Pacific is warming, we're getting more rainfall. More rainfall usually means more mosquitoes. And in the longer term if we have significant climate change, experts believe that the geographical area that's vulnerable to mosquitoes and, therefore, dengue and other infections like Zika virus may spread."

He also spoke about the importance of closely assessing children affected with microcephaly.

Some careful neuro-developmental assessments need to be done in order to reach some conclusion about what the risks are, so that doctors can advise their parents accurately.

The detection of Zika virus in Australia is not new.

Four cases were diagnosed in New South Wales in 2014 from people who had recently travelled from the Cook Islands, while an additional case was detected in 2015 in a patient who'd just returned from the Solomon Islands.

Australia's neighbouring countries, including Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, have been on high alert for the virus, and say measures introduced to help combat the spread of Ebola virus can be re-activated if necessary.

An estimate from the WHO suggests the number of Zika cases in the Americas could reach 4-million in the next year.

For CRI, this is Li Jianhua.