UH wants to bring Zika to Hawaii

The Board of Agriculture is expected to vote today on whether to grant the University of Hawaii a permit to import the Zika virus to Hawaii for animal vaccine trials as concerns mount locally and internationally over the spread of the virus and its ability to cause microcephaly, a devastating birth defect.

The university has been trying to import the virus for vaccine trials since 2009, after the Yap Islands in Micronesia experienced a widespread outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus, said Vivek Nerurkar, chairman of the Department of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Pharmacology at the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine.

“So that was the time when I decided that we need to have a vaccine to see what is going on with this virus, because we are the closest island to the South Pacific and there is no reason why it can’t come here,” said Nerurkar.

Following the Zika outbreak in Yap, outbreaks of the virus were reported in French Polynesia, New Caledonia, the Cook Islands and Tonga, and on Easter Island, according to documents relating to UH’s permit application.

The ongoing Zika outbreak in Brazil prompted the World Health Organization to declare Zika an international public health emergency this year. Ongoing transmission of the virus has been reported in nearly 60 countries and territories.

If the permit application is approved, UH scientists will join a growing group of scientists and companies trying to find a vaccine for the virus or ways to prevent it from causing microcephaly and other birth defects.

Hawaii Biotech, a private company, also announced this year that it is working on a vaccine, though the company reportedly plans to conduct lab work on the mainland.

As the virus has exploded throughout Latin America, health officials have warned that infected mosquitoes could spread to the United States as early as this year, particularly in Gulf Coast states such as Florida and Texas.

There have been nine confirmed cases of Zika in Hawaii, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In each case, the virus is believed to have been acquired during international travel, and there have been no cases of locally acquired Zika in Hawaii, according to the state Department of Health.

However, local health officials worry that the virus could be brought into the state through an infected traveler.

Nerurkar said that his team, which is seeking grants from the National Institutes of Health to conduct the vaccine research, plans to use mice and possibly guinea pigs in the trials. He said the research will be conducted in the medical school’s Kakaako labs, which are equipped with tight controls to prevent the virus from escaping.

He said the chance of the virus escaping is “a highly unlikely probability.”

While UH began seeking a permit from the Board of Agriculture in 2009 to import the live virus for trials, Ne- rurkar said that the department shelved the application, and it never went for a vote.

Scott Enright, chairman of the Board of Agriculture, said that he wasn’t sure why the board hadn’t put the application forward for a vote in previous years, but said that the Plant Quarantine Branch, which oversees such permits, has historically been “very conservative about what has moved forward.”

He also said staff members have struggled to track applications, a problem the department is working to address. He said applicants often have to be aggressive in following up with staff to make sure that their applications are complete.

“Trying to track (the permit applications) has been difficult,” he said. “So what I have done is ask the branch to review the process and update it so that there is more transparency and to get it to move forward quicker.”

In preparation for today’s meeting, an advisory committee within the Department of Agriculture has recommended that the 10-member board approve UH’s permit request.