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Three to four million people could be infected with Zika in the Americas this year
Three to four million people could be infected with Zika in the Americas this year, the World Health Organization predicts.
Most will not develop symptoms, but the infection has been linked to brain defects in babies.
WHO director general Dr Margaret Chan said Zika had gone “from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions”.
She has set up a Zika “emergency team” after the “explosive” spread of the virus.
It will meet on Monday to decide whether Zika should be treated as a global emergency.
The last time an international emergency was declared was for the Ebola outbreak in West Africa which has killed more than 11,000 people.
Zika was first detected in Uganda in 1947, but has never caused an outbreak on this scale.
Brazil reported the first cases of Zika in South America in May 2015.
Most cases result in no symptoms and it is hard to test for, but WHO officials said between 500,000 and 1.5 million people had been infected in the country.
The virus, which is spread by mosquitoes, has since spread to more than 20 countries in the region.
At the same time there has been a steep rise in levels of microcephaly – babies born with abnormally small heads – and the rare nervous system disorder Guillain-Barre syndrome.
The link between the virus and these disorders has not been confirmed, but Dr Chan said it was “strongly suspected” and was “deeply alarming”.
And she warned the situation could yet deteriorate as “this year’s El Nino weather patterns are expected to increase mosquito populations greatly in many areas”.
The BBC’s David Shukman, reporting from Recife in north-east Brazil, said doctors were “overwhelmed” by cases of microcephaly.
One hospital in the city had gone from dealing with an average of five cases a year to 300 in the past six months.
BBC