In his office in Miller Hall on the University of Georgia campus, professor in Public Health Jose Cordero is getting ready to leave Athens for another flight to Puerto Rico.
He has been countless times. He is traveling there to meet with expectant moms who are at risk of Zika virus.
Cordero was in Puerto Rico conducting research on preterm births when Zika was first reported on the island in January of 2016. He was asked by the National Institutes of Health to help recruit and monitor more women early in their pregnancies in order to learn more about the mosquito-borne virus.
Since then, he has split his time between Athens and Puerto Rico.
Professor Cordero says the women are tested every month in hopes of detecting the virus early.
The number of women affected is staggering. He says they are currently aware of more than 3,000 pregnancies affected by the virus.
Because many people with Zika have no real symptoms, Cordero says the actual number is probably much bigger – maybe close to 9,000.
“There is always the opportunity for local transmission in Georgia,” says Cordero.
He adds, “We already have couples that have traveled to areas where there is Zika and there are some cases of what we call imported Zika.”
Cordero says Zika is a wake up all and it reminds us that there are a lot of emerging diseases that are lurking.
He estimates there is between 100 to 300 different virus or bacteria that could emerge.
While Cordero is back and forth between Georgia and Puerto Rico, other work is also being done on Zika at the Athens campus.
In fact, a number of different projects concerning Zika virus is underway.
One of the biggest is the development of a vaccine. Currently, there is no cure or vaccine for the virus. UGA researchers have teamed up with Geo Vax Labs to develop a vaccine to prevent Zika.
So far, the results are very encouraging.
Despite great progress Cordero says he does not think we will have a vaccine anytime soon. He says it would be surprising to have one in 10 years. It usually takes about 20 years to get a vaccine to market.
We have heard that only a few species of mosquitos could spread Zika, mainly the Aedes aegypti, but UGA researchers now say many more species could carry the virus including 26 that were not previously considered a threat.
Inside UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine thousands of mosquitoes are in a secure area of the lab being studied.
Until there is vaccine for Zika Cordero says, “We have to continue to be alert and be sure we can prevent transmission.”