Brazil expects to develop a vaccine for the Zika virus in about a year, health officials say.
However, two more years would be needed for any large-scale rollout, health minister Marcelo Castro said.
Brazil is at the center of an outbreak of the Zika virus that has been linked to a surge of brain malformations in newborn babies.
Separately, officials have said the death of a third adult in Brazil had possible links to Zika.
Marcelo Castro announced that Brazil would invest $1.9 million in research for the Zika vaccine over the next five years, in partnership with scientists at the University of Texas.
Researchers have agreed that the testing of the vaccine would happen simultaneously in mice and monkeys, and not separately, to speed up the process, he said.
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A vaccine could be ready for distribution within three years, Marcelo Castro added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global public health emergency over the possible connection between Zika and microcephaly, a condition marked by abnormally small heads in newborn babies that can result in developmental problems.
The link with Zika has not been confirmed, but the WHO and other public health bodies have said it is strongly suspected.
Brazil has seen more than 4,000 suspected cases of microcephaly since October – a huge surge considering it had fewer than 150 cases in the whole of 2014.
Officials there believe as many as 1.5 million people could be infected by Zika.
Brazil has also announced a partnership with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for studies about the possible relation between the virus and the condition.
The microcephaly cases have been centered in north-east Brazil, but the Zika outbreak has affected people in more than 20 countries in the Americas.
Some governments have advised women to delay getting pregnant. Already-pregnant women have been advised not to travel to the countries affected.
Brazilian researchers found the Zika virus in the body of a 20-year-old woman who died last April from respiratory problems in the north-eastern state of Rio Grande do Norte, the health minister said.
Two other patients last year also died from complications while they were infected with the virus, before the outbreak had been discovered.
“We are still studying this in greater detail,” Marcelo Castro said at a press conference.
WHO director general, Margaret Chan, is expected to visit Brazil on February 23, Brazil’s health minister said.
President Barack Obama will ask the US Congress for $1.8 billion in emergency funding to combat the Zika virus.
The Zika virus, which is transmitted primarily through mosquitoes, has spread rapidly through the Americas.
It has been linked to a condition called microcephaly, in which babies are born with underdeveloped brains.
The money will go to mosquito control efforts and vaccine research programs among other initiatives.
The White House says that some of the money will go towards “enhancing the ability of Zika-affected countries to better combat mosquitoes and control transmission” of the virus.
The Zika virus is currently being transmitted to new patients in 26 countries in the Americas, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has confirmed 50 cases of the virus in the United States among people who had travelled to affected regions and returned to the US.
There is a growing fear that as warmer months approach in the northern hemisphere and mosquitoes become active, local transmission could become a problem – especially in the southern US.
Last week, the first case of locally transmitted Zika was reported in Dallas, Texas. Notably, the virus was spread in this case through sexual contact, not a mosquito bite.
The Zika virus has had a considerable impact in Brazil, which has seen a spike in microcephaly cases – totaling around 4,000 in recent months, stirring fears ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared an emergency over the cases last week, prompting research and aid to be fast-tracked.
The Reuters news agency reported that the US Olympic Committee has told its athletes and staff who are concerned about the virus to consider skipping the games.
However, the Zika virus did not keep revelers home from Carnival in Rio de Janeiro over the weekend – some 70,000 fans were said to have been in attendance.
The World Health Organization is holding an emergency meeting in Geneva to discuss the “explosive” spread of the Zika virus.
The meeting will decide whether to declare a global emergency.
According to WHO officials, 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 Brazilian officials have been given permission to break into properties that could be harboring 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.
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 criticized and it was deemed to have been too slow to declare an emergency.
At the meeting, experts in disease control, virology and vaccine development will brief WHO director general Dr. Margaret Chan.
Last week, Margaret Chan said: “The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty.
“Questions abound – we need to get some answers quickly.
“For all these reasons, I have decided to convene an emergency committee.
“I am asking the committee for advice on the appropriate level of international concern and for recommended measures that should be undertaken in affected countries and elsewhere.”
Since the mosquito-borne disease was first detected in Brazil in May 2015, the Zika virus has spread to more than 20 countries.
The Zika pregnancy cases have doubled in Colombia in just one week, officials said.
According to Colombia’s National Health Institute, almost 2,000 pregnant women now have the virus out of the more than 20,000 people infected across the country.
The mosquito-borne virus has been linked to babies being born with abnormally small brains.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned Zika is “spreading explosively”, predicting up to 4 million cases this year.
Colombia says it expects the overall number of people to be infected to rise to more than 500,000 by the end of 2016.
On February 1, the WHO meets to decide whether Zika should be treated as a global emergency.
Brazil has been worst affected by the outbreak, followed by Colombia, but more than 20 other countries have seen cases.
Jamaica and Peru reported their first confirmed cases over the weekend, with Peruvian President Ollanta Humala urging calm and stressing that the patient contracted the disease outside of the country.
Zika symptoms are mild, causing a low fever, joint pain, headaches, a rash and conjunctivitis.
Concern surrounds a surge in babies born with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, from mothers infected with Zika. A link has not been confirmed.
Colombia has also said it has seen an increase in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disorder that can cause temporary paralysis, that has also been linked to Zika.
The Zika outbreak has sparked health warnings and eradication campaigns, with Brazil deploying troops and Colombia launching a mass fumigation campaign to fight mosquitoes.
Colombia and other Latin American countries have advised women to delay getting pregnant for the moment.
Between three and four million people could be infected with Zika virus in the Americas in 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts.
Most will not develop symptoms, but the Zika virus, spread by mosquitoes, has been linked to brain defects in babies.
Meanwhile the US says it hopes to start vaccine trials in people by the end of the year.
According to WHO director general Dr. Margaret Chan, Zika had gone “from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions”.
Dr. Margaret Chan has set up a Zika “emergency team” after the “explosive” spread of the virus.
The emergency team will meet on February 1 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 was first detected in Uganda in 1947, but has never caused an outbreak on this scale.
Brazil reported the first cases of Zika in South America in May 2015.
Most cases result in no symptoms and it is hard to test for, but WHO officials said between 500,000 and 1.5 million people had been infected in Brazil.
The virus has since spread to more than 20 countries in the region.
At the same time there has been a steep rise in levels of microcephaly – babies born with abnormally small heads – and the rare nervous system disorder Guillain-Barre syndrome.
The link between the virus and these disorders has not been confirmed, but Dr. Margaret Chan said it was “strongly suspected” and was “deeply alarming”.
She also warned the situation could yet deteriorate as “this year’s El Nino weather patterns are expected to increase mosquito populations greatly in many areas”.
One hospital in Recife, north-east Brazil, had gone from dealing with an average of five cases of microcephaly a year to 300 in the past six months.
Earlier, doctors writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association said Zika had “explosive pandemic potential” and said the WHO’s failure to act swiftly on Ebola probably cost thousands of lives.
In a statement to the executive board meeting of the WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan said: “The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty.
“Questions abound – we need to get some answers quickly.
“For all these reasons, I have decided to convene an Emergency Committee.
“I am asking the Committee for advice on the appropriate level of international concern and for recommended measures that should be undertaken in affected countries and elsewhere.”
Officials from the US National Institute of Health (NIH) said they had two potential Zika vaccines in development.
One that is based on an experimental West Nile vaccine could be repurposed for Zika and enter clinical trials by the end of 2016, Dr. Anthony Fauci from NIH said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said talks were already taking place with pharmaceutical companies, but a vaccine would not be widely available for several years.
Meanwhile Dr. Anne Schuchat, from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed there had been 31 cases of Zika in the US – all linked to travel to the affected areas.
At a news conference, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the US response to the virus so far had been “consistent with the kind of threat that could be out there”.
“At this point, here in the United States, the risk of a disease spread by mosquitoes is quite low, the January temperatures in North America are quite inhospitable to the mosquito populations.”
“But, obviously that’s going to change,” he added.
Dr. Carissa Etienne, the regional-director for the WHO Pan American Health Organization, said the link between the abnormalities and Zika had not been confirmed.
Brazil will deploy 220,000 troops in its fight against mosquitoes spreading the Zika virus.
The troops will go from home to home handing out leaflets on how to avoid the spread of Zika, which has been linked to thousands of babies being born with underdeveloped brains.
The announcement came after Brazil’s Health Minister Marcelo Castro said the country was “losing badly” in its fight against the virus.
No treatment or vaccine is available.
Marcelo Castro said the troops would be sent out on February 13 to hand out leaflets and give advice on how to eradicate mosquito breeding grounds.
The health minister told O Globo newspaper that the spread of the Zika virus was one of the greatest public health crises in Brazilian history.
The fight against Zika could only be won if people did their bit to eradicate the Aedes Aegypti mosquito which transmits it, Marcelo Castro said.
He added that the mosquito, which also transmits dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever, was Brazil’s “public enemy number one”.
“Last year we had the highest number of dengue cases in the history of Brazil,” Marcelo Castro said.
“We’re losing badly in the battle against the mosquito.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on January 25 that the Zika virus was likely to spread across nearly all of the Americas.
Symptoms include mild fever, conjunctivitis and headache and the virus has already been found in 21 countries in the Caribbean, North and South America.
However, what the authorities are most worried about is the damage the virus can potentially cause babies in the womb.
Brazil has recorded a huge spike in cases of babies born with microcephaly and a number of Central and South American nations have asked women to delay pregnancy.
There have been 3,893 reported cases of microcephaly in Brazil since October compared with the previous annual average of just 160 cases.
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