The fight against Zika can’t wait for a vaccine

As Congress plays politics over emergency funds requested months ago, Zika is on the verge of spreading across the United States. When an epidemic is imminent, vaccines can’t be developed quickly enough because assuring their efficacy and safety requires trials that take months to years to complete.Candidate vaccines for Zika won’t begin large-scale trials until 2017 and, assuming they work safely, would not be available until 2018 or later. The next best thing is widespread testing of at-risk populations so new cases can be identified immediately and prevented from transmitting to others. Widespread testing can also pinpoint “hot spots” where community-wide measures like mosquito spraying should be targeted. This strategy mirrors what Tony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has outlined for stamping out HIV/AIDS, for which there is also no vaccine. Authorities in Miami are attempting this approach with door-to-door testing of Zika in affected neighborhoods. Widespread testing at greater scale...