By World News Report Bureau

The World Health Organization said today it expects three to four million cases of the Zika virus in the Americas, as fears mount over the rapid spread of the disease. Zika has been linked to thousands of babies being born with small brains in Brazil.

WHO has set up a Zika “emergency team” after the explosive spread of the virus. WHO Director General Dr Margaret Chan said Zika has gone from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions. The team 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 virus is spread to people through mosquito bites. The most common symptoms of Zika virus disease are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (red eyes). The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting from several days to a week. Severe disease requiring hospitalization is uncommon.

“The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty,” WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan told her organization’s executive board members. “We need to get some answers, quickly.”

The greatest cause of concern is that some 80% of those infected with Zika virus -including  pregnant women and their babies–never know they have it.

Accoring to WHO officials the virus is leading  to a “steep increase in the birth of babies with abnormally small heads and cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome- a rare autoimmune disorder that can lead to life-threatening paralysis. Having small heads can cause severe developmental issues and sometimes death.

Zika was first detected  in a monkey in Uganda in 1947 . Zika was most often found along the equator from Africa into Asia. Around a decade ago new cases popped up in islands along the Pacific Ocean.

Zika finally made its way to the Americas — with devastating results sometime last year.

Many scientists in United States have urged the World Health Organisation to take urgent action over the Zika virus, which they say has explosive pandemic potential. They called on the WHO to heed lessons from the Ebola outbreak and convene an emergency committee of disease experts. They said a vaccine might be ready for testing in two years but it could be a decade before it is publicly available.

Zika, linked to shrunken brains in children, has caused panic in Brazil. Thousands of people have been infected there and it has spread to some 20 countries. The Brazilian President, Dilma Roussef, has urged Latin America to unite in combating the virus. There is no cure for the virus and the hunt is on for a vaccine. The researchers have visited Brazil to carry out research and collect samples and are now analysing them