Zika has hit Florida. At least 14 cases of infection with the mosquito-borne virus are now confirmed, with more certain to come, and federal health officials are warning against visiting the Miami neighborhood where transmission occurred. Federal health officials have been touting the rapid progress in developing a Zika vaccine to protect against the virus, which can cause birth defects when pregnant women are infected, as well as a progressive paralysis called Guillain-Barré syndrome. Count me skeptical. There are numerous reasons—scientific, technical, regulatory and economic—that the horizon for a Zika vaccine is probably much more distant.
The bottom line: Don’t count on making an appointment to get a Zika vaccine shot before the end of the decade—at the earliest. Meanwhile, public-health authorities should focus on controlling the mosquitoes that transmit Zika, a task that the feds have badly fumbled. A British company called Oxitec has created genetically modified male mosquitoes whose offspring self-destruct before reaching maturity.
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