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Fauci expects less impact from Zika virus in Americas in 2017

SAN DIEGO – While there will be outbreaks of the Zika virus in the Americas this year, it is unlikely to be as severe as the outbreak that resulted in hundreds of thousands of cases in 2016, according to Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“We don’t anticipate that it will be as explosive as it was the previous season,” he said in an interview with Healio Internal Medicine.

The impact in the United States will be determined by how successful prevention efforts in other countries are, as most of the cases there were the result of travelers acquiring the virus abroad and then returning and infecting others, he said.