"We have a number of vaccine candidates, the first one…is a DNA vaccine candidate. We will be going into phase 1 trials in humans within the next couple of weeks, sometime in early August," Fauci said at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
The trial will include 80 participants and take place outside of Washington, DC at the NIAID national center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Fauci warned that the emergence of the mosquito-borne Zika virus is part of a "pandemic in process," with more than 5,000 documented cases in the United States and its territories.
The Zika virus does not cause serious complications in infected individuals, but it can cause developmental abnormalities in infants, like microcephaly. The disease is primarily spread through mosquitos, but can also be transmitted from mother to child, sexually, and as a result of blood transfusions.
