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An emergency meeting of the World Health Organization is being held to discuss the “explosive” spread of the Zika virus.
The meeting in Geneva will decide whether to declare a global emergency.
WHO officials have described Zika as moving “from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions”.
Most cases will have no symptoms but the virus has been linked to brain abnormalities in thousands of babies in Brazil.
Meanwhile in the country, officials have been given permission to break into properties that could be harbouring mosquito breeding grounds.
They will be able to force entry when the place is abandoned or when nobody is there to give access to the house.
Emergency?
Declaring a “public health emergency of international concern” would establish Zika as a serious global threat and lead to money, resources and scientific expertise being thrown at the problem both in South America and in laboratories around the world.
The WHO’s actions are under intense scrutiny after its handling of the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.
Its efforts to prevent the spread of the virus were widely criticised and it was deemed to have been too slow to declare an emergency.
Prof Peter Piot, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the BBC: “WHO clearly dropped the ball responding to the Ebola crisis, it took about five months to declare Ebola in West Africa a public health emergency.”
“By any means, this [Zika] is a public health emergency with the sheer numbers of people who are coming down with a flu-like syndrome, but particularly the complications.”
